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What DID the dormouse say?

November 24, 2011 //
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Black, crumbly, scratchy, smeary… charcoal: I love it. Standing up at a precarious easel, I’m concentrating on the hip of the naked woman in front of me and trying to relate it to the elbow of another, and get it in the right elbow/hip proportion.

Under a black-and-white check canopy with a disembowelled chair hanging over my head, I’m at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (in New England House, Brighton). That’s the theme of this life class: I expected people dressed in Alice in Wonderland costumes sitting around a table – maybe a stuffed dormouse hanging out of a teapot. I wasn’t really expecting four beautiful young women, wearing, respectively, a top-hat, striped stockings, rabbit ears, and a cigarette-holder, in a surreal grotto of giant playing cards, a huge key, flowers and checks everywhere… it’s years since I went to a life-drawing class, but things have clearly changed! You might say it’s a bit, well, burlesque, but it’s not: it’s a life-class, imaginatively-staged.

The models start with quick poses, five minutes – in fact, they change positions when the song finishes. The songs all relate to the Alice theme, but don’t include the song from the old Disney film (aaah), and do include a disappointing cover of Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ (oh well). But that’s not why I’m here. I plunge into a few brush drawings, all bad – I should have been practicing. It takes a while to get your eye back in, but I switch to soft pencil, then lovely charcoal. Everyone’s concentrating hard, and the models are striking really taxing poses, and I’m getting a bit better, and then it’s all over. Time flies in Wonderland.

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A Perfect Day (almost)

November 24, 2011 //
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Sun slotting in through venetian blinds: I get up and shower. Aching from a day’s humping of gravel bags, digging, planting, easing Arthur into his hole (see previous post), we’re going to spend this last golden day cycling. At the station we can just get the three bikes between standing passengers in a 2-car train: the woman in a wheelchair could squeeze between us to the toilet, if it was working.

It’s a relief to burst out at Polegate, and finally we find the Cuckoo Trail: an 11-mile cycle and walking path that once was the Polegate to Eridge railway line, torn up in 1968. It’s a lovely ride between the big oaks, still with their leaves on. And it’s not strenuous, I’m glad to find! We come to junctions with other paths and roads, gateways that are really unusual: bullet-nosed bollards with a simple cast iron shape on top, or a big serrated steel arch, imaginatively-wrought – it’s a sculpture path as well. It’s a beautiful day, warm too: we eat our Co-op sandwiches sitting on a bank, looking at the gradated layers of landscape stretching back towards Firle Beacon.

We’re aiming for the 4.02 back to Lewes, but we’re a bit tired now and miss it, so have a pint of Old in the pub (also tired). Cycling the 100 yards to the station, we’re separated by the crossing barriers rattling down between us: I wait obediently till I realise that it’s our train. Pedal furiously towards the footbridge, hoist my bike onto my shoulder, and leap up the steps into the crowd coming down. At which point my perfect day becomes, well, less-than. My ankle turns over and I go sprawling across the steps, bike clattering, and the crowd parts around me, avoiding eye-contact. Battered and wincing, I lurch across the bridge dragging the Ridgeback, but it’s too late – our train pulls out. I curse that pub’s dreary embrace. Apart from that, though…

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Gardener’s Question Time

November 10, 2011 //
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“I have a north-facing front garden, sheltered, in chalky soil, which doesn’t get much sun. What bush would give a good strong shape under these conditions?” I can just about bear The Archers but GQT (as it is known to aficionados) gets on my pectorales major.

There was a time when the idea of doing anything in a garden, except for wandering around with a soppy smile on my face, or worse, feeling anxious bordering on paranoid, would have been unthinkable. I spent many a year inhaling the fruits of the soil, (which did me no good at all, kids!) and it’s been a long time since I last choked on a lungful of smoke; then I had no idea that one day I would be asking the above question in a garden centre. (A GARDEN CENTRE!) It’s not rock&roll, is it?

But here I am, buying a Salix Caprea ‘Pendula’: it’s a small willow, and its branches curve over from one side to the other (fig.1). We name it ‘Arthur’, because it reminds us of Arthur Scargill’s bouffant comb-over hairstyle.

A few little Buxus Sempervirens, some Uncina Rubrasome, gravel, and a couple of rocks, and we’ll soon have this feline lavatory transformed into a zen garden.

Sheltered, trailing willow

in a gravel garden –

catkins, not cat-crap.

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Damascene Conversion

November 3, 2011 //
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‘Last Year FTSE 100 Executives awarded themselves a 49% pay rise. They gave their workers only 2.5%.’ It’s just one of many posters taped to the pillars of St Paul’s Church Yard, among a wide variety: thoughtful, ranting, funny, clever, scurrilous, caring… On the side of the Info Tent is a poster for the Halloween Zombie Banker’s Run (meet at St Paul’s, 1pm for make-up) – a rather well-choreographed lurch in the streets to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
There are many tents here, of all colours, posters flying from guy-ropes. There’s Tent City University – a marquee for seminars and discussion; it has a full timetable with lectures on Socially Responsible Investing?, Land As Common Property, Guided Meditation sessions, Who Owns Britain?, A History of St Paul’s Cathedral – I count 24 sessions scheduled this week on the board.
Camera crews are everywhere, filming and interviewing; I’m drawing a cameraman in front of Queen Anne’s statue, ‘Root Out Usury’ as backdrop, when another cameraman interposes himself; I quickly draw his hand and lens and tripod until he swivels round behind me and films my drawing of him filming etc etc…. this is getting silly.
The atmosphere is relaxed: a few police in non-threatening uniforms stand around, chatting amiably to protestor and tourist alike. Though there are some flamboyant costumes, it’s difficult to tell who are protestors, who are visitors, and who are media, unless they’re holding a microphone or camera. What will come of the protest, I don’t know. Just the fact that it’s happening, voices protesting against greed as the basis of society, is thrilling.
There’s a crowd now, to hear an announcement: not from the Authorities, but from its own representatives: St Paul’s Cathedral has abandoned its court action to evict the camp. The crowd shakes hands in the air in approval and joy – this is a momentous decision after the resignations of Canon Chancellor, then the Dean himself. And the Corporation, the authority of the banks and financial companies, has put its action on hold – the ‘pause button’.
Will anything change? We shall see.

Michael Munday
www.michaelmunday.com

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A Turn For The Wurst

October 27, 2011 //
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It has to be the Bratwurst. It was always going to be the Bratwurst, but I felt I ought to have a look at the other stalls anyway. I knew I’d come back to the German Deli: Sausages, Mustards, Pickles…

Emerging from under London Bridge Station’s canopy, I’m staggered by the massive, sleek glass pyramid that is The Shard: a gigantic (inverted) V-sign of a gesture to London’s lesser buildings. Still topped by a crane, but untopped itself, it will house the rich – ‘exclusive apartments’; companies – ‘inspirational’; visitors – ‘5-Star Shangri-La: opulent and exclusive’. Or it may stand, like Centre Point, empty. Cynical, me?

Down the steps by Southwark Cathedral, into the wonderful food smells and the human crush of Borough Market. Under the girders are the stalls, doing a brisk trade: Bermondsey Bangers with their beef, venison, and ‘Ultra Beef’ burgers; the oyster stall; a Middle Eastern stall heaped with aubergine and pumpkin kibeh, spinach parcels, halloumi cheese; a long trestle table piled with loaves of all kinds. There’s a huge stack of whirled meringues next to a cascade of those lovely Portuguese custard tarts – people are snapping away and buying food at the same time – it’s a total feast for the senses. This is not your average market – it’s a very designed market, with cool graphics on the walls and superstructure: visitors’ fulsome quotes, apparently – in their corporate typestyle. It’s been there since 1014 (AD that is), they reckon, though I imagine the branding was more homespun then.

You do, actually, want to eat all the food on display, and take away anything in a bottle, jar, or can. In the end – I knew it – I go back to get the Bratwurst. And sauerkraut.

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Song and Dance

October 25, 2011 //
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Saturday – I have one sodden ball of tissue to staunch the tears rolling down my cheeks and I’m making a spectacle of myself. Well – I would be, if all those around me weren’t riveted by the spectacle in front of me. Mimi, hiding behind a fire-escape, overhears the real reason she has been abandoned by Rodolfo. I’m in the second row at Glyndebourne, watching La Bohème, treated by a friend. I finally get the appeal of opera; I’ve seen a few over the years, but none has had this effect. A grubby, freezing kitchen in a squalid student flat reminds me of life in the early 1970s. But it’s not that memory that moves me: the pathos of the situation, the characterisation, the huge swelling music a few feet away, the exquisite soaring voices  – all combine in a wave of emotion. Heightened, it has to be said, by the wine… sniff, dab.

Monday 9am – I’m signed in by a young blonde woman, her breasts dusted with glitter (9am!) Not a dodgy club – it’s the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton. ‘Aaah’ she says (as in ‘Bless!’) – we’re Over-60s. Actually we’re extras in auditions for a Rehearsal Director for the new Three Score dance project. (Why am I doing this?). The first candidate, Jason, takes us through some sequences: a discus-throwing swing, skips, circling arms; then lift toes, down, lift, down, lift foot, down, bend other leg, straighten other… the 60-year mind/body (well, mine) doesn’t retain this easily. But Ginny’s audition is more personal, quirkier, and somehow I can hold onto these moves: circle the face, cradle the head, rotate the arm, over, back… My body’s waking up. I’m taller somehow. I want to be a dancer now… (Over-60s – bless…).

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When I Get Older…

October 25, 2011 //
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August 1967: I’ve got the latest Beatles LP under my arm! It’s called, strangely, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, and inside the gatefold cover is a sheet of designs by Peter Blake – designs that you can cut out and keep – and even wear. I can’t wait to play it when I get to this party. Hard guitar on the title track, a bit of whimsical singalong stuff for Ringo (well, OK, but a good chorus), Lucy in the Sky (aaah, yes, psychedelic!), sitars and tabla, Lovely Rita, with orgasmic panting, and Good Morning, with a great biting guitar solo, then the churning Sergeant Pepper reprise, and A Day in the Life – amazing! Trippy!

But on side two, what’s this corny old-time thing? Sort of vaudeville style with a clarinet…’When I get older, losing my hair’..? Perhaps I’ll skip that track at the party. I sort of like it though.. ‘Vera, Chuck, and Dave.’ Funny.

In 1967 it was twenty years ago that Sergeant Pepper apparently taught the band to play, which would make it 1947: a time of rationing, austerity, a bitterly cold winter, and my birth. And I still get the valentine.

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In Shoreham

October 25, 2011 //
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My brother-in-law(-in-law) shows me round the house he’s built in Shoreham. It’s not his house, though – he built it for someone else. It’s in classic Modernist style: all clean rectangles, open, light, beautiful wood finishes – I wish it were mine. Inside, an open staircase above a mosaic pool leads up to the open-plan living area. Lovely proportions, exquisite attention to detail. Huge smooth-sliding windows form the whole width of the house; all you can see is beach, sea, horizon, sky.

Two minutes away are the houseboats. Not just boats that are lived in: some of them are evolving art installations, with pieces being added, welded on, changed – the inventiveness is exhilarating. One boat is topped by a coach above heart-shaped windows, another has a car set in the side. A gate is made from a salvaged railway-signal, a letterbox from a microwave on a post. A large bomb, nose-down in the mud, is made from a buoyancy float, ‘PEACE’ exquisitely cut into its side. Everywhere there are bright colours, flowers and vegetables growing, amazing juxtapositions.

The ordered and the random; the cool and the wild; design and art.

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What A Day This Has Been

October 25, 2011 //
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A sky of solid blue, blazing sun, and the shushing of waves on the shingle beach – and it’s October.

We’ve carried our picnic down from the car-park to the beach steps but the tide is coming in and soon there will be nothing to sit on; we walk up the path to the top of Seaford Head, clear a space in the rabbit-droppings and spread the ancient blanket. Bacon and parmesan muffins, asparagus, figs and a bottle of Sauvignon in its silver chiller-jacket: this is a classy picnic – we’ve got Sheffield son and girlfriend with us.

We walk down the hill past the much-photographed coastguard cottages and spread our towels, and after limping over the pebbles I have to dive into the sea. It’s colder than it looks, and after a bit of puffing, floating and staring up into the blue I’m crawling painfully back out again.

A beefy-bicepped man in tattoos and shades strolls along the top of the beach with a tiny dachsund straining on a lead; another, leathery dark-tanned, poses in tight split-sided trunks. A thin white youth in flappy football shorts fails to skim stones over the sea.

Just the whoosh of the waves, distant children’s squeals, seagullszzzzzz….

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Chalk

October 24, 2011 //
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Under an ominous sky a half-naked man, writhing in his death throes, lurches towards the high coppiced-wood fence surrounding him. His body is like a Grünewald Christ: thin, ribby and pale, his face painted white. All around him, there’s the clashing of cymbals and the sounding of horns. And fire. But the crowd is silent.

About 150 people – men, women, children, dogs – have walked, following the flags, pipes and drum, from Harting Down. A woman blowing a long twisted antelope horn had called this strange figure from the trees on the hill, this very white man, in slow ritual Butoh movements: in his hands, stag’s antlers. Dogs in the crowd growled at the sight – no other sound. The stag worked his way along the valley, stalked and harried by three figures, also in white, hands and bodies angular and aggressive.

Now the stag is driven, wounded, down this long high corral of woven sticks, hounded by the drums, the cymbals, the fire. But as he dies, wrapped in a long white banner, there’s a tiny high sound from the hill behind him. A woman in a long red dress leads a white horse with a strange figure on it. As they come nearer, you can see it’s a woman, a Mongolian woman in high collared national dress, and the sound is a beautiful and eerie song, a traditional Long Song.

She sings us up the valley, to the tolling of deep bells, until we reach a place of flags, and a crescendo of gongs. The stag-man slowly winds his way up the hill trailing the long white banner, and the horse-woman and her escort rides away to the right, stlll singing…

This has been ‘Chalk’ – an installation and performance by Red Earth. Extraordinary, moving, unsettling.

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