ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Here at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ we take art and culture seriously as we believe that the finer things in life can make life, well, finer. The Cultured Curmudgeon, The Literary Curmudgeon, The Music Curmudgeon, The Food Curmudgeon and The Wine Guy in particular endeavour to bring readers useful information and insights that can make their lives better ...

... better than the offerings at that other blog Richard's Bass Bag with its Bass Bag Consortium that includes the odious Akish The Philistine blog. I mean - Akish The Philistine! Really? Have a look at one of his recent posts:

Should we be scared? Yes, certainly as cultural boorishness and anti-intellectualism like this is one of the tenets of fascism and dictatorships. It's worrying that Richard has a sub-blog like this one and frankly (his name is actually Richard) he should know better being an educated musician and all.

Reviewing my own blogs I took note that The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ doesn't include a visual arts blog - something along the lines of The Fine Arts Curmudgeon which is something that I will have to redress when I'm not so busy. In the interim though I thought that I'd provide you with an image of one of my favourite paintings - Renoir's La Loge.

 The bold black and white stripes on the woman's dress draw the viewer's gaze to her rather than the man behind her.  The black and blue areas create the effect of shadow and light which are contrasted with the soft tones of her skin and the bright and strong colours of her lips and the flowers which is typical of Renoir. I've mentioned before how black and white shadows (venetian blind effect) can be used in art and film to denote conflict as seen in Bertolucci's film The Conformist:

After putting the Renoir painting image in this post I then thought about what the other bloggers might have as their favourite paintings.

Robert is easy to guess given his Marianist infatuation with The Virgin Mary and would likely start off with Jean Fouquet's 'Madonna':

Richard, given his leaning towards Philistinism would not like the classics, finding them to be pretentious, boring, or irrelevant so we need to look to something more modern - but not too modern as he would find that to be pretentious, boring, or irrelevant. I guess something from the 1960s that adorned a very high proportion of living room walls might be the thing, like flying ceramic ducks or one of these:

On your behalf I'll do some more research on this and look to create a new blog - The Fine Art Curmudgeon with the bloggers' art selections being the theme for the first post.

No need to thank me.

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT

No, I'm not going to insert a video of that tosser Rod Stewart and his odious song.

What's more important to the culture of New Zealand than the All Blacks?

Robert no doubt will disagree saying that men running around chasing a ball is silly and they'd be better off praying in church.

OK, everyone's entitled to their opinion but in answer to that I just say:

Yes, I'll be getting my dose of Kiwi religion at 9PM tonight with the first of the Bledisloe Cup games.

All Blacks skipper Sam Cane in action against the Wallabies. Photo / Getty

The All Blacks are currently ahead with a one-point lead in the Rugby Championship standings over the Springboks, Wallabies and Pumas.

As it's the All Blacks against the Wallabies the Bledisloe Cup is up for grabs but, the Wallabies haven't had the cup since 2003 and have lost three straight tests to the All Blacks. 

Last five tests:

2021: All Blacks 38 Wallabies 31, Perth
2021: All Blacks 57 Wallabies 22, Eden Park
2021: All Blacks 33 Wallabies 25, Eden Park
2020: Wallabies 24 All Blacks 22, Brisbane
2020: All Blacks 43 Wallabies 5, Sydney

Hey!

Regardless of the result - rugby is the winner.

'IF YOU CAN MAKE IT HERE, YOU CAN MAKE IT ANYWHERE ..."

 ***BREAKING NEWS***

The Curmudgeon's blog has been awarded Google Blogger Most Promising Blog Award 2022.

This is a significant achievement and even eclipses The Curmudgeon's previous award The Richard's Bass Bag "Well That's Boring" Award. Well done The Curmudgeon. I thought it opportune to call The Curmudgeon  to discuss the momentous event.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Hello TC. May I say that you are an inspiration to all with not only this new award but with your posts in general.

The Curmudgeon: Thanks TCC, and yes you may say it.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Say what? ...... Oh, yes, I see, you were being literal there. Ha ha.

The Curmudgeon: Yep, a bit like James Fridman in that earlier post I did about literal interpretations of photo editing requests. Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner and toilet cleaner (don't ask) didn't see the humour in that though.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: He comes from Moera doesn't he?

The Curmudgeon: Yes, I believe so but he calls it Petone Heights.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Well, that explains it. Humour no longer lives in Moera I'm told.

The Curmudgeon: Look TCC, I don't want to appear rude but I've lit a nice fire in the lounge and was looking forward to reading or watching a film. What did you call about?

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Oh dear. Dearie me. I'm so sorry TC, how very remiss of me. I was calling to ask how you went about winning that inaugural Google award and whether there was any chance .. he he ... of the rest of us Curmudgeons getting one?

The Curmudgeon: Oh, I see. Well then. First of all you need to have been producing quality and frequent blog posts for at least 14 years ....

The Cultured Curmudgeon: You first posted in 2008 I believe.

The Curmudgeon: That's right and as I was saying ........ posting for at least 14 years. The Google Blogger assessment team will then critique all of those posts and make informed judgement on them applying a complicated points system to come up with a total which is then compared to the totals given to the hundreds of thousand other blogs that are in consideration. As my points were the highest I was awarded the inaugural Google Blogger Most Promising Blog Award 2022.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Wow! I'm impressed. That really happened?

The Curmudgeon: Of course not you silly cu ... Cultured Curmudgeon. I just searched for an award making programme on the internet and found Free Certificate Maker. It took me all of about three minutes to make the award.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Oh.......I'm ......

The Curmudgeon: Impressed? 

The Cultured Curmudgeon: No, er ....

The Curmudgeon: Look TCC, you need to get real. We at the blogging interface put in the hard yards to write interesting and very frequent posts ..... well, some of us do, there are a couple of other jokers who fail on both 'interesting' and 'frequent' ...  and we get bugger all acknowledgement and no reward for this. Sometimes you just have to make things up. Ask Robert and his Catholic Church. They're experts at it.

The Cultured Curmudgeon: I see, I think. Hey TC ..... do you think you could make me one of those thingamajigs?

The Curmudgeon: An award certificate?

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Yes, but with a bit more gold foil and some extra accolades because,  you know that I'm cultured.

The Curmudgeon: Right. When did you start posting?

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Um ... October 2017 I think.

The Curmudgeon: So, nearly five years ago?

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Yes, so, what about it?

The Curmudgeon: Give me a call in another nine years......(click) ....BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The Cultured Curmudgeon: Hello!  Hello! Well, that's rude.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 It's been a while since I've posted and I really must make up for that. I said in my last post that everything during COVID seems to be getting dumbed down - me included.

Now that the dumbest US president ever has 'retired' maybe things will improve - pandemic-wise, news-wise and entertainment-wise. Already though, the news programmes I've been watching for the last year aren't as interesting and exciting as America and maybe the world get back to normal. There aren't the daily disasters, tantrums, idiocy and dangerous conspiracy theories coming from the presidency and it's getting a bit boring.

I need to ginger things up a bit and start something going in this blogging community. Religion is always a good topic to get some conspiracy and controversy going but The Religious Curmudgeon, Angry Jesus and Evil Doctor Richard The Catholic Apologist seem to have this adequately covered. Medievil (sic) Brother Rob, while trying to defend catholicism always shoots himself in the foot and makes the whole thing look sillier. No need for me to get involved here.

Music though is another question. I've found that if I, a consumer of music and not a creator, write anything in this area, Robert ( of Medievil (sic) Brother Rob fame) jumps in and tells me that amateurs shouldn't have an opinion. Richard (of Richard's Bass Bag fame) is more generous but to be honest he's also distracted by the subsequent musical theory and practice practise application fight with Robert.

Here's something I'm going to throw in the ring. It's more 'cultural' than 'music' so The Music Curmudgeon won't be bothered. AM I BOVVERED?

Sorry, that was just a bit of silliness that we cultured people indulge in sometimes. Here's the proper link:

OPEN CULTURE

Enjoy!

GETTING DUMBER

Under COVID-19 lockdown almost none of us has an excuse not to up-skill and educate ourselves.

Will we do it?

Probably not.

I've got lots of books on the bookshelves that I should read or re-read. Amongst them are classics of literature from Prowse Proust, Joyce, Dickens, Shakespeare, Orwell, Tolstoy, Wilde, Solzhenitsyn, Lawrence, Hardy, Kafka, Steinbeck, Pynchon et al but I'm bypassing them for Spike Milligan's war memoirs, Lee Child's Jack Reacher series and other pulp fiction novels.

In the cupboard we've got DVD boxed sets of history, nature and quality series like The Wire and The Singing Detective but we're watching the latest pap on Net-flicks and YouTube.


This lockdown might actually have the effect of dumbing us down.

"EVER TRIED. EVER FAILED. NO MATTER. TRY AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER."

I listened to an interesting interview with Barry McGovern on National Radio this morning.

HERE

He's bringing an adaptation of Samuel Beckett's novel WATT to New Zealand to the Auckland Arts Festival in March next year. I must make booking to see this.

Beckett has, to me and others I know, been very difficult to understand. McGovern, in the interview by Kim Hill said that Beckett, on the contrary is extremely easy to understand and that most people over-complicate things in their own minds. He said that WAITING FOR GODOT for example was a play about waiting and that ENDGAME is about leaving. He said that children find Beckett very simple and that adults find him very complicated. The answer is somewhere in between.

McGovern should know since he's spent a lifetime interpreting and acting Beckett's works. He also said that James Joyce is very easy to read as well and again he should know as he's very familiar with Joyce's works as well. Mind you, I've read ULYSSES and struggled through FINNEGANS WAKE and wouldn't describe either as easy.


If you go to the National Radio link then also have a look at the link to GAME OF THRONES where McGovern played a minor but very interesting part as a dying farmer. He said that a couple of the writers who have doctorates in literature were Beckett and Joyce scholars  and knew of his work so wrote a piece for him in the series. Interesting and shows that it's easy to discount something because it's popular even though the people behind it are very clever.

Along with GAME OF THRONES I put THE SOPRANOS  and BREAKING BAD forward as well (but leave out Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger stuff).

THE PERMIT

In 1969 my dad took over, from a family friend, the care-taking job for a 3 storey building in Taranaki Street that was owned by the Wellington Catholic Church diocese. They had offices in there. The job came with a huge 3 bedroom penthouse apartment that in today's terms would have been worth a fortune. We didn't appreciate this value at the time as inner city living in the 1960s and 1970s wasn't fashionable. My brother and I 'flatted' at the family house in Vogeltown during my 6th and 7th form years at college and early years of university. We kind of lived between the two places - sleeping at the house and having meals at the apartment.

Dad kept his contracting business going for a couple of years before winding that up and doing the care-taking full-time. I was given the cleaning contract for the building which was a doddle being only a few hours a week but bringing in as much money as if I worked full-time. Nepotism was alive and well. I kept this contract all through university.

In the building was a book publishing company.  They used to throw out a lot of interesting things some of which I'd keep when emptying out the rubbish bins. One day I found a couple of boxes of books. I opened them up to discover dozens of copies of 'The Permit' as per the image above. Opening one I discovered that all the pages were blank which is why they were thrown out. I kept the books though as I knew that they would be good note pads being just less than A5 size at 110 cm x 180 cm. These proved to be very useful. I used them at uni and gave away to family members and still have several which I use from time to time..

I was making some notes in one the other day in fact.

*************

I never read 'The Permit' (well there were no words in the books I had for a start) so don't know anything about the novel.

Today I did an internet search and read about Donald Horne on Wikipedia:

Donald Richmond Horne  ... was an Australian journalist, writer, social critic, and academic who became one of Australia's best known public intellectuals, from the 1960s until his death.
Horne was a prolific author who published four novels and more than twenty volumes of history, memoir and political and cultural analysis. He also edited The Bulletin, The Observer and Quadrant. His best known work was The Lucky Country (1964), an evaluation of Australian society that questioned many traditional attitudes: "Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."                             WIKIPEDIA

OK, I like that quote from The Lucky Country.


As for The Permit, The Sydney Morning Herald had this to say:

In Donald Horne's 1965 novel The Permit, an ordinary, inoffensive citizen applies to the government for an authorisation: Permit 37A. His case is picked up on a media whim and he is drawn irresistibly into the vortex of politics.
The citizen, Adam Richmond, becomes the subject of spirited exchanges in the parliament as one party uses his case to attack the other. For a moment, he is at the centre of the nation's affairs. And when the case becomes too uncomfortable for the government, the minister for permits, Pat Shennanagen, rises, with the greatest reluctance, to denounce Richmond. The minister discloses that the apparently innocuous applicant for Permit 37A had been a member of the Communist Party, expelled for drunkenness and degeneracy, with a history of bad credit, homosexuality and venereal disease.
"God in heaven!" shrieks the news editor of the Daily Trumpet. "He's a Commo - and a pansy!"
            SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 

Sounds good so I think I'll track it down and read it at long last.

THE HIGH Cs

NOT THESE

BUT THESE

Pavarotti - King of the high Cs

Well I had a bit of a cultural weekend in Auckland managing to cram in NZ Opera's The Barber of Seville, Ron Howard's documentary film on Luciano Pavarotti and Indri Hughes organ recital at the town hall. Marvellous and would have been perfect if I'd managed to see Delicious Oblivion at the Cabaret Festival but just missed out.

Saturday night

The Barber of Seville was a lot of fun. This is comedy-opera but it wasn't fluffy as the performances were really good and the set outstanding making lots of use of opening balconies and upstairs/downstairs antics. It was good to see the NZ cast matching it well with the Aussis. Great stuff. NZ Opera always put on a good show.

Sunday morning

Ron Howard's documentary on the life of Luciano Pavarotti is a 'must see'.

Sure, some reviewers will write scathing reviews saying that the 'homage' is a bit too gentle and twee but Howard manages to keep himself and opinions out of this and just shows Pavarotti doing what he did best - singing. The poor life choices were mentioned and shown but not dwelt on as these things should be. This will bring tears to your eyes in parts and those 'high Cs' - outstanding.

Sunday afternoon

The Auckland council put on free concerts at the town hall from time to time and on Sunday afternoon we were lucky to catch this beauty. 'Free' means by donation which we gave $10 each  knowing that proceeds go to the preservation society for the wonderful and world famous Auckland Town Hall organ. Hughes played this 'machine' brilliantly mixing up Bach, Vivaldi and Handel classics with some lighter British pastoral tunes. He played a very moving dedication to a recently bereaved friend with two Elgar pieces. 

They set up the hall well with a big screen either side of the organ, one showing the foot pedals and the other the keyboards and the stops.

We really enjoyed this and will look forward to future concerts.

I'm sorry that I missed out on Delicious Oblivion though.

This was Jennifer Ward-Lealand take on the songs from the nightclubs of Berlin during the days of Weimar Republic including Kurt Weill classics.

Maybe it'll get a repeat sometime and I'll keep a better eye on what's on on Auckland.

THE OLD GIRL

'THE OLD GIRL ' could apply to Bleak House the Charles Dickens novel I've been reading for 48 years.

I bought this little leather bound book in 1971 when I went to Victoria University in Wellington and studied (amongst many other things) English. I never finished the book. Actually, I hardly started it, reading only about the first 30 or so pages. I bluffed and bullshitted my way through tutorials, tests and exams with the various characters (there are so many in this novel) bewildering me.
I've had the book all this time and have only just finished reading it.

As I sometimes do, I coincided my reading with listening to the audio book version and watching the 2005 TV series on TV On Demand. The novel, with all of its plots and sub-plots, characters, themes and settings fell into place and the experience was sumptuous. It took me 48 years but I've done it and it makes me hungry to read some more Dickens although I doubt that any others will come close except for Great Expectations. I might in fact repeat the exercise with Great Expectations as I remember a stunning British TV series of years ago. If I can find this to watch and line up with both the audio and written novel then I'll do it.

As I said, I finally caught up with the characters in Bleak House, most of whom I never knew existed.
One couple, Mr and Mrs Bagnet are case in point here for this post. Mr Bagnet, a minor character  was a military friend of Mr George who was a central character to the main plot. He was a dealer in musical instruments and a right bore. He loved his wife though and deferred to her in all things.

He always referred to her as THE OLD GIRL.

I find this to be funny as I, in this blog always refer to my partner Lynn as THE OLD GIRL.

She's also worth her weight in gold.

• 
  

HOWDY

Yesterday when we were walking a passerby said hello.
I didn't take much notice but The Old Girl said that it wasn't a very friendly hello.
I asked her what she meant and she said that the 'hello' was perfunctory and lacking in any real warmth.

We live in a semi-rural area where people do acknowledge others on the roadside as opposed to Auckland and I guess other cities in NZ.

Maybe the woman was recently from Auckland and hasn't yet adjusted.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHARD (OF RBB)

HERE'S THE FUCKING NEWS

We get so much shit thrown at us nowadays via multiple channels. Some is serious and real but a lot of it is fabricated and bogus for all sorts of reasons of bias.

Have a look at this clip. It's a spoof but I'm sure that it voices the feelings of many news reporters.


ANGRY REPORTER

HIP, HIP, HOORAY (ONCE)

Good old Erik wrote a piece for my chair.

FURNITURE MUSIC

OPEN CULTURE

A good friend from Wellington sent me a link to an outstanding catalogue of interesting information, poetry, film, art and literature.

I've been relishing dipping and diving into it watching, reading and listening and have signed up for the (free) subscription.

Here is the link:  OPEN CULTURE

I've been listening to audio of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
If you have time access and listen to these. The poetry and literary authority of these is a marvel.

In a world and certainly a world wide web full of unmitigated crap it's so refreshing to find the real stuff, the quality stuff formatted in an easy to find way and without all the dust and inaccessibility of 'antiquity'

I hope you enjoy it. I certainly am.

AKISH WOULD APPROVE

It's good to see some people in positions of power and influence have a good sense of humour.

Guggenheim's Deputy Director Nancy Spector, in declining a request from The White House to borrow a Vincent van Gogh painting to decorate the wall of their private residence, declined the request but offered instead a sculpture by Maurizio Catalan called America which is an 18 carat gold toilet.  See:

ART NEWS

The White House declined the offer.

Priceless!

THE TRUMPS WANTED THIS







THEY WERE OFFERED THIS
.

Well done Nancy Spector and The Guggenheim.

"YOU'LL MISS ME WHEN I'M GONE ....."

...... my mother used to say to me when I was cheeky to her. You know? She's right. I miss her now she's gone.

Some people aren't missed although their awfulness in certain areas of arts, music (Florence Foster Jenkins), literature, science (creationists) and poetry (Coleridge) live on.

One such is William McGonnagal whose reputation and fame far exceed his poetic ability.

MCGONNAGAL DIES AGAIN

William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825– 29 September 1902) was a Scottish weaver, poet and actor. He won notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work.

He wrote about 200 poems, including "The Tay Bridge Disaster" and "The Famous Tay Whale", which are widely regarded as some of the worst in English literature. 

*****************************

Robert has gone again. He has once again deleted his blog. This has happened before but usually he just deletes all his posts. Either way his posts which variously include his bizarre views on creationism, science, religion, history, the role of commercial cleaners in society and his home-grown poetry are lost forever.

I think I miss him.

SINGING WITH HIMSELF

THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON posted a silly Christmas song in his latest post. My apologies on behalf of CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ.

In 1985 when I heard Aled Jones singing "Walking In The Air" it gave me goosebumps. I'd heard it sung before by Peter Auty as it was a song in the film The Snowman but it was the release of the Jones version that got all the Christmas playtime.

The song cut through all of the usual yuletide crap both old and new and I have very fond memories of it.

Below is Jones singing it as in 1985 but also as his older self singing it last Christmas.
It still has the magic with the extra bit of interest in the older Jones singing as well.


ALED JONES AND ALED JONES - WALKING IN THE AIR

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

There's been quite a bit of discussion amongst CURMUDGEON INC.ⓒ members this morning following the outrageous behaviour of members of The Bass Bagging Confederation.

Some members have advocated turning the other cheek and making peace with this vile and dangerous outfit.

Others have pushed for direct and appropriate retaliation and to employ Baxter's own methods by removing his head.

maybe though we should just laugh it off.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

It must be getting close to Christmas as Richard (of RBB) has sent out his annual Christmas letter which was up to its usual form. This year it seems to me that Christmas isn't making much of an impact as compared to other years. Are we over it?

Robert in his soon to be deleted blog post .......

FATHER CHRISTMAS IS NOT REAL. SO WHAT THEN

 ... laments the demise of Father Christmas and wonders if Christmas in entirety will disappear (at least I think that's what he said but with Robert's posts - who knows?)


In The Altered States of America the Trumps have lit up the White House lights thereby making a better target for the North Koreans and others and will no doubt be saying a lot of prayers.

"Take your best shot Little Rocket Man, I'll be in Florida" - Donald Trump

In the past The Curmudgeon, as part of CURMUDGEONS INCⓒ's creed of bringing useful and informative facts to our readers has posted histories of some Christmas institutions. See below:



CHRISTMAS CARDS


CHRISTMAS TREES


CHRISTMAS CRACKERS


CHRISTMAS LETTERS

**************************************

Today we'll look at the history of Christmas lights.

Auckland has a whole street in Ponsonby where almost all of the residents light up their houses at Christmas. This has over the years developed into a tradition and people come from miles around to view them.

Generally these are done quite elegantly and not over-the-top kitsch like the yanks do:

Although to be fair, they can produce some elegant ones as well:

The origin of Christmas lights was in Northern Europe where Christmas is in mid winter and the days are short and the nights long. In the 1700s, way before electric and gas house and street lighting was invented, folks stayed indoors after nightfall because it was too difficult and dangerous to venture out.

The advent (see what I did there?) of the celebration of Christmas brought about a new tradition of distant relatives coming to visit. Invariably these visitors would turn up after daylight hours and, being unfamiliar with the places they came to visit would become hopelessly lost and often not found until the spring thaw. Something needed to be done.
Some bright spark (or more likely a candlemaker) came up with the idea of putting a candle or candles in the window so that the visitors could see the light.


AS LONG AS I CAN SEE THE LIGHT - JOHN FOGERTY

Soon everyone was doing this so, although it was safer for visitors there was no identification of the right house to be visited and many an unfortunate or embarrassing event ensued.

Eventually a solution was found and households developed their 'signatures' of different configurations of candles or lanterns in different windows. These were adapted with different colours and later, with the invention of gas and electric lighting the entire house could be lit up in a unique and interesting way thus guiding the visitors to the correct house.

Of course, in the case of unwelcome relatives the householder could pretend that they had run out of candles or the gas or electricity was off thus leaving the house in darkness.

*******************

I trust that this was useful.

ALLEGRO NON TROPPO

Do you remember this?


ALLEGRO NON TROPPO (trailer)


Robert put a link to Saint-Saens - Violin Concerto No.3 in B Minor I: Allegro non troppo in his comment on my THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON bless him.


I remember seeing this when I was at university in the 1970s - it may even have been shown at the excellent cinema we had on campus where I skived off went to see many good films.
It was a parody of Disney's Fantasia (also brilliant) and had some very advanced techniques of incorporating animation with real film.

Well worth a watch.