Symbol and Metaphor in Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, Part 2

[Spoilers aplenty]

It has been a long time since Part 1, and there have been moments when I have considered changing the ‘in’ in this title to ‘and’, or even abandoning the idea altogether. In brief, an excursion into conceptions of symbol and metaphor, myth and allegory, has led me to all kinds of interesting areas – some of them far more interesting than the movie. In particular, reading Jung’s Man and his Symbols has proven rewarding. Jung’s notions of symbols and archetypes extends the idea of symbol towards something like the psychological equivalent of genes. Symbols become the building blocks of consciousness, and their meanings may differ radically from individual to individual whilst still preserving reverberant ancient/primitive forms. This further erodes the distinction between symbol and metaphor I discussed in Part 1. At one point Jung states:

“One could say that this dream picture was symbolic, for it did not state the situation directly but expressed the point indirectly by means of a metaphor that I could not at first understand.” We’ll return to this in the concluding section.

In Antichrist, the slippage between action and meaning fosters a piece that eschews empathy. We are faced with a cold beauty that is uncompromisingly vicious, and devoid of human emotion. In this sense, the film is not alone in Trier’s oeuvre, but it is exceptionally bleak. The carefully constructed symbols and metaphors seem to be arbitrarily thrown together - with meticulous skill and acuity. This is paradoxical: a skilful roll of the dice?

The Story

On the face of it, the narrative runs thus: happily married, bourgeois man loses everything, including his balls; kills his wife, and walks out into a mysterious world of blank faces that ignore him. The blank faces are attracted like moths to the flame of his wife’s funeral pyre. This might be symbolic of the director himself walking away from his creation/destruction, and the blank faced people represent filmgoers attracted by the flickering light of the movie cum bonfire of his vanity. In this sense, the film is a metaphor for Von Trier’s own torment. Since there are two protagonists though, there is another parallel strand: that of the woman. Bourgeois woman loses everything, including her life. Much of the loss she appears to bring upon herself, however, whereas the man is to a great extent victim. Towards the end, She assumes the role of unstoppable harridan, a worthy counterpart to The Terminator himself, and a character that only death will halt. Finally, however, she defeats herself by excising her own motivational chip, which happens to be her clitoris. When the husband ultimately executes the saisir de grace, one feels it is almost out of pity rather than revenge or self-preservation.

There has been much, largely misplaced, debate over the misogynistic turn in the film. To step back out into the real world for a moment, it is sobering to contemplate that the act of female circumcision is routinely practiced among many peoples of the world. Around 6000 women/girls a day succumb to this barbaric practice and, ironically, most of the operations are carried out and perpetuated by women. Many women die following the operation, or in subsequent childbirth. It is tempting to contemplate how much of the gynocide in the attic of the log cabin is carried out by women themselves. Perhaps this is one of Her reasons for abandoning the study. Is it possible that Her horrific act symbolises the plight of these victims? It would be disingenuous to argue that Von Trier is in any way campaigning on behalf of the anti-female circumcision lobby though. In my view, this film sides with no-one. But in a sea of chaotic symbols devoid of common emotional anchors, anything goes.

Beyond Good and Evil

The morality displayed in the film puts me in mind of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. The work is striving to say something within humanity and within history that is impossible to say, for it is, by its own aspiration, outside humanity and history. The fearful arbitrariness of an uncaring Nature brooded over by a debilitating vacuum devoid of meaning is hard for us to bear, witness or express. Yet this forms the basis of the film’s ontology. Similarly, Nietzsche’s exploration problematises notions of Good/Evil that are grounded in Nature, human or otherwise; he is also notoriously intolerant of religious reasoning. Incidentally, the book also contains some wincingly misogynist remarks. Perhaps there is a connection there somewhere. Either way, one of the most distinctive features of Nietzsche’s book chimes very nicely with the way Antichrist has been constructed. The book is aphoristic. Whilst there may be a simple overall narrative line in the film, it is portrayed and punctuated by a series of portentous standalone scenes and images, akin to a procession of slowly moving tableaux vivants. Whilst each scene is replete with symbols, they seem to be strung together arbitrarily and, despite appearances and talking animals, the whole doesn’t amount to anything like a traditional allegory, or extended metaphor. For instance, the device of the talking animal is common in allegory (Animal Farm, for instance), yet it is here reduced to a single motif – literally the voice of the director: “chaos reigns”. This aptly illustrates a central theme of my experience of the film: the symbolic unfolding of the film is aphoristic and largely arbitrary, constantly leading us to reflect on the director himself.

One of the reasons Nietzsche wrote his book as a series of aphorisms lies in his fearless questioning of the fundamental conceptions of traditional philosophy. He felt that adopting a standard form of exposition would have been self-defeating. 

Dada

Dadaism was one of the first artforms to explore this territory, and there are many Dadaist resonances in Antichrist. Whilst the film contains homages to the immaculate cinematography of Tarkovsky, and allusions to the closely observed musicality of Bergman, it is actually far closer to the likes of Buñuel in execution. To take one example: I was reminded of the notorious sliced eye opening Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou. A pair of scissors supplants the razor, and the vulva replaces the eye but the act of cutting leads us back to the same place: the director. In any movie ‘the cut’ is determined by the director, and although Trier has experimented with various techniques to absolve him of this burden (see The Boss of it All, for instance), he remains firmly in control of what is kept in or out of his movies. Why has he chosen to include a graphic representation of this act? To show that he is THERE? Is it a symbol? A metaphor? A woman, symbolising unquenchable animalistic, murderous lust, attempts to (re)gain control of herself by cutting off her access to sexual pleasure, excising that which drives her to repeatedly attach herself to her therapist/lover/husband. Once detached, She ceases to struggle and becomes defenceless. This unlocks the final sequence of events leading to her own death. What might this be telling us? Simply filleting out a single strand is not necessarily going to give us a ‘key’ to the film, but it is a pivotal point. The hapless unmanned man walks away, whereas the woman remains locked in the film. By becoming light, the woman becomes the film. Something we can come and gawp at, time and time again – even freeze framing the gorey bits should we so wish. The man/director walks away, as do we in the end. But we HAVE to look back at Trier when we reflect on the genital cutting scene, and maybe we don’t like what we see. Are we the faceless audience flocking to the flickering flame of the pyre of womanhood ignoring Him because he got away? Do we flock to pay homage to the dead, the captured, to the lost ideal, to a beauty that is destroyed… or do we simply awaken from the dream with all our impressions sinking back immediately into our unconscious, leaving a niggling suspicion that we have woken into another dream? Von Trier's dream?

Before we flap off into the sunset, we must return to earth though. Buñuel said of Un Chien Andalou “no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted… Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything.”     ... echoed by Lars Von Trier's “I am not trying to say anything”.  

From a Dadaist perspective, this is laudable, meaning is after all arbitrary. Both Antichrist and Un Chien Andalou summon up demons, whether we like it or not. We all have archetypes inhabiting our dreamworlds...

CUT!

The Red Legged Scissorman

Genital mutilation gave the film a free boost of publicity and doubtless generated a whole new audience for Von Trier. It would be interesting to see his overall sales figures before and after the release. Alongside this, we notice that the unkindest cut in the film has also divided audiences and critics alike. The scene where She goes to work with a large pair of scissors is shocking, but it is only a small step from things you might find lurking in Grimm’s Farly Tales, or Shockheaded Peter. As as child, I was terrified of the ‘Red Legged Scissorman’ (poem), more terrified than I will probably ever be again when witnessing a piece of shocking (non-live) art.

The simple act of cutting as that depicted in the film will have different effects and meanings according to the individual witness. The poles of metaphor and symbol unite at this deeper level. But no matter how much dissection is carried out, the body cannot be understood via a dead analogue though.

Consequently, it’s not simply a case of looking under the bonnet and finding Adam and Eve in Eden after The Fall, then announcing ‘well, there’s your problem then, mate’. No.

Having said that, one of the more articulate cinema-goers attending the same showing did conclude: “that was fookin shite”. Symbols, in this lowly milieu at least, are those things you get on the outside (and sometimes on the inside) of toilet doors; a stunted vocabulary of metaphors will churn up phrases like ‘at the end of the day’... The notion of film as metaphor is unlikely to divert such tides.

Mirror

One of the reasons I started this investigation was Von Trier's homage to Tarkovsky in the final credits. When asked by the press about this dedication, he responded wrily: “If you dedicate a film to director then nobody will say you steal from him.” Link There were indeed certain Tarkovskian qualities to Antichrist, but on the whole they were superficial, especially in relation to the deployment of symbol and metaphor. In Mirror, a film Von Trier rates highly, Tarkovsky displays an uncanny ‘control’ of Chance and Nature in a meticulously ordered multilayered/non-lineal narrative that concerns itself with living memory, in all senses. Mirror lies almost at the opposite end of the scale of human empathy and emotion, yet there are distinct resonances. The hut in the forest, the rain/elements on cue, cameo animals, are trivial references to Tarkovsky; the beautiful cinematography is doubtless indebted to some of Tarkovsky’s painstaking techniques, but where do these great directors sit on the symbol/metaphor scale? This was the question Von Trier put in my head by dedicating his film thus.

Unsurprisingly, symbol and metaphor were big issues for Tarkovsky. Perhaps surprisingly however, he was insistent on preserving a strong demarcation between the two. The further I have investigated this binary relationship, the more I have come to see it as a continuum without a clear dividing line, not so Tarkovsky. Firstly, on symbols:

“I am an enemy of symbols. Symbol is too narrow a concept for me in the sense that symbols exist in order to be deciphered. An artistic image on the other hand is not to be deciphered, it is an equivalent of the world around us. Rain in Solaris is not a symbol, it is only rain which at certain moment has particular significance to the hero. But it does not symbolise anything. It only expresses. This rain is an artistic image. Symbol for me is something too complicated.”

Interview Ein Feind der Symbolik with Irena Brezna in "tip" 1984 (3), pp. 197–205 [Pol. trans. Adam Sewen]. Link

Here Tarkovsky is further distinguishing between complication and complexity, between a rigid mechanism and a shifting organism. In this sense, beauty is something that can be incredibly simple (as opposed to complicated), but at the same time it can be infinitely complex (as in a pretty nest of fractals). This immediately put me in mind of another great director: David Lynch. Eraserhead is one of my favourite films of all time, and David Lynch has produced some incredible work, but increasingly the films seem to consist of a complicated arrangement of symbols with little or nothing beyond other than a possible key. They become puzzles, like computer quest games. Indeed Mark Allyn Stewart’s David Lynch Decoded sets out to put meaning to each of the recurring symbols in Lynch’s films, down to the colour of the curtains, literally!

Lynch is unquestionably a modern surrealist and has acknowledged his debts to Dada and the like, but there is something missing here. This is what Tarkovsky is hinting at above and more forcefully below:

We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.

Interview Le noir coloris de la nostalgie with Hervé Guibert in "Le Monde", 12 May 1983 [Pol. trans. Malgorzata Sporek-Czyzewska].

This marvellous utterance will help us on the road to our sunset. Whether or not we fully agree with Tarkovsky’s strong demarcation, hopefully we can concur that it is true for certain, perhaps limited, notions of symbol. The broader, more flexible ideas of symbol in, say, Jung, may percolate into what we commonly accept as the ground of metaphor. Tarkovsky is telling us that metaphor-image, held up as a mirror to nature, will yield us something that may be both indeterminate in meaning and deeply resonant with the human spirit. I feel touched or moved by this when I watch Tarkovsky's films, but this is strangely/purposefully missing in Antichrist, even though all the elements are tantalisingly present. This level of understanding is available to us precisely because we are not cold, rational calculating engines following arbitrary traffic signs to oblivion, we thrive on indeterminacy and we create meaning from it. Possibly Her transformation from truculent patient to raging murderess symbolises this movement.

A crucial factor in the construction of this kind of metaphor-image is the relationship the director has with Nature. Whether Nature is with or without spirit, and whether human spirit abides as part of this, or is somehow banished from it into irrelevant absurdity. This might even be framed as a religious question, and it is one that is addressed in Antichrist. In doing so, the film goes way beyond soft targets like Christianity, Islam, or even New Age pseudo-paganism. As a result, Antichrist goes much further than Nietzsche’s The Antichrist (coincidence, I’m sure), which is primarily an Anti-Christian tract. For all the critics’ hoohaha, I think, if anything, the film attacks Pretension.

Still the question remains though: does it hang together as a Tarkovsky-esque extended metaphor, or is it merely a loosely connected series of symbols signifying nothing? If nihilism is its ontology and meaninglessness its goal, then has Von Trier succeeded? What would success look like? The answers to these questions are not straightforward at all. I think the film is a success even though it doesn’t achieve the level of empathic transcendence that Tarkovosky often does. Tarkovsky draws us into Nature without sentimentalising the human condition, Von Trier struggles to pull us away. This divergence is revealed in how these two directors see and use symbol and metaphor. There is a book in that. Possibly a trilogy, if you add Lynch and Buñuel!

The Fall from grace at the beginning of the film is driven relentlessly forwards by the impassive force of Nature as Satan’s Church in a land where Chaos Reigns (cue rain), until death and destruction is achieved. Nature continues regardless, audiences flock to the movies, the director walks away and lives to make another film, hopefully.

Well, that’s part 2, and I really must get on with something else now. If there is ever a part 3, it will probably be a random string of one-liners swept up from the cutting room desktop. Probably should have done that in the first place.

“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”

Links:

The Independent review

Counterfire review

Symbol and Metaphor in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist

Part One: The Title

I have often struggled with the shifting boundaries of metaphor and symbol, puzzling over how the same string of words, or a graphic sign can be sliced up as either one or the other. The distinction has sometimes seemed arbitrary and unhelpful when trying to analyse my own experience of complex artifacts such as movies. Yet I am aware that the distinction between symbol and metaphor has also been ardently defended by artists and critics alike.

Traditionally and simply put: a symbol transfers meaning through a direct association, whereas a metaphor operates on a deeper level of implied analogical transference where meaning may be more fluid and expansive. It is clear, however, that certain signs are instantaneously both symbol and metaphor. The crucifix is an apt example, on the one hand it symbolises Christianity, but on the other, it may be used as a metaphor for wider Christian values such as suffering or redemption. A direct association has been achieved by the symbol standing for the actual cross constructed out of wood, whilst the metaphorical analogy has been achieved through a continuous broadening of Christian beliefs within a far wider socio-historical context. My problem has always been where to draw the line on what I see as a continuum or spectrum where all symbols are potentially metaphors and vice versa. I would argue that, for instance, the symbolic aspect of the crucifix is no longer meaningfully separable from its role as visual metaphor, in Western culture at least. Symbols are Trojan Horses, loaded with metaphors. The swastika is another case in point. If we retreat to the surface level of association then we have the general category of ‘sign’ for the graphic itself, but where on the sign:metaphor continuum do we place symbol? Further abstract discussion of this would lead us into convoluted digressions of semiotics, denotations, connotations, signifieds and the like, losing focus on the central contention that the relationship between symbol and metaphor is simply problematic. I think we can agree that metaphor is the deeper and more complex of the two though.

Immediately, Lars von Trier’s film Antichrist throws us into the heart of these issues. Firstly, both the film logo (above) and the screened title (below) split the word ‘Antichrist’ into two halves:

ANTI
CHRIST

implying a break with the traditional Biblical rendering that assigns The Antichrist to some mythical being, a literal negative analog of Christ. By splitting the word, we are confronted with the possibility that the movie might be setting itself up against Christ, positing no replacement. The title leaves a bloodless void, a revolution without an answer, a war without a post-war plan. This cinematic act deals with something far deeper than a mythico-religious Being, it symbolises a massive, gaping Against. This kind of standing is already metaphorical, operating at a level far deeper than sign or symbol. The disturbance goes further still though when we come to the T of CHRIST which morphs T, cross/tau cross, and the symbol for ‘woman/female/Venus', into something resembling the ankh, Egyptian symbol of life, fertility and lust. Another resonance here being the Alchemical symbol for Copper which also leads us back to Venus via electricity (in combination with Mars/male/iron), but also it is remarkable in being able to heal restlessness and non-acceptance of oneself.

These symbols are already replete with meanings, but visually and semantically we get the sense that the very word Christ has been usurped by Woman, particularly in von Trier’s graffiti scrawled version. Interesting to note in passing that the biological symbol for woman actually derives from a depiction of Venus’s hand-mirror, further complexity in the symbol:metaphor continuum. Returning to the surface of the hybrid symbol, the cross replaced by Woman could easily be inferring that Man is crucified on/by Woman. Alternatively, those who would portray von Trier as a misogynist might argue that it merely reflects the leitmotif of the whole movie, ANTI WOMAN. Personally, I think neither is intended. I witness a sardonic iconoclasm that seeks to undermine all banal associations of signification. It made me smile.

Before we can get beyond the title, there is one further idiosyncrasy evident in the scribbled version. There is a rift between the grouping of the letters of ANT and I. We could read ANT I CHRIST. Given the role of ants in nature as the great reclaimers of death, given their mythical autochthonous origins, we might expect some reprise in the film itself, and indeed it is there. Ants do appear on the corpse of a runt egret gobbled up by its mother, however this may be homage to Buñuel rather than a declaration of the primacy of Ant. The other consequence of this grouping is the typographical separation of ‘I’, and given that this is the first film that von Trier has directed whilst being separated from the camera and even the shooting itself, it is possible that this too is revealed in the title. Evidently, he was only well enough to shoot a couple of short scenes himself.

[In Part Two I’ll be looking at the movie itself]

Independence Day

Today, I held in my hand my son's polling card. The news was burbling on about the latest round of scandals routinely cuddling our politicians like cacky loincloths. As I gazed at the card, I was wondering whether to bin it, contact the authorities about his new address, or leave it for someone else to deal with. It was raining outside, and a security light blazed into my retinas.

It seemed as though virtually everything was going down the pan: politics, money, the planet, the neighbourhood, hope, and ideals. I wasn't getting any younger either...

Then this chap comes on the box. He's an ordinary bloke being given airtime. He's standing as an Independent MP, 'like Martin Bell' (I'm sure he said 'Jon Snow', but no matter) - nothing to do with the (oxy)moronic Independence Party (UKIP), or indeed any party. The man was standing for 'ordinary folk', with the idea that if every constituency had such a candidate, we could decimate the parliament of self-interests and replace it with real people on behalf of... the people. This appealed to me momentarily and I silently wished him good luck.

Whilst researching my MA essay on 'Is there such a thing as historical Truth?', the thought kept recurring: is anything worth standing up for? Gradually the idea of standing for ordinary folk started to rise, like a sunken battleship freeing itself from centuries of sand and lurid encrustation. It may be a little out of date, in fact it is positively old-fashioned, but it seemed to have striking contemporary relevance, a very simple idea: stand for people, if you can stand them.

I checked out what I needed to do to stand as an Independent MP for Leeds West in the next General Election.

1. Get 10 local people to sign a nomination form. That shouldn't present a problem even if I have to knock on a few doors.
2. Be prepared to pay a £500 deposit that will be forfeited if I don't get over 5% of the vote. In my case that would be around 1700 votes on the basis of 2005 figures. Not being a defeatist, I don't think 1700 votes would be that difficult to achieve - especially having recourse to the internet. In any case, the fee isn't payable until 'about two weeks before polling day', according to the official blurb.

So, there it is. I intend to stand as an Independent MP for Leeds West. A vote for me will be a vote for you, if you live here. I don't think we need any dogma or posturing, what we need is clear thinking and honesty... and that forgotten art: the ability to listen. As an oral historian, such requirements are bread and butter. I popped my son's polling card on the old sea chest with a wink.

I hereby champion/espouse/agree with the cause:

LET EVERY CONSTITUENCY HAVE AN INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE, AND LET'S GRAB POLITICS BACK FROM THE POLITICIANS!

... and if you live in Leeds West - do drop me a line, I need to hear what you'd like.

Leeds West 2005 results:
Turnout: 62,888 53.6% of Electorate
Labour win: Rt. Hon. J.D. Battle, with 18,704 votes (55.5% of the vote)
The BNP got 1,166 votes, beating UKIP on 628 into last place. There was NO independent candidate!

Check your constituency votes here: http://www.election.demon.co.uk/
Not sure which one yours is? Here's a map: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/flash_map/html/map05.stm

Top of the World

All of history in that top. A crucified bag flaps up the context. I am returning to locate something I passed. It feels as though I have gone too far, but it must be here somewhere. I spot the spot. It echoes the orange of that gregarious bag.






It is there. Looking up like the Sun never does. Simply a top. But what does it reveal of its place and people? Of the ones who designed it, created, made, used and finally cast it aside?

A path where many people tread would not have harboured it for long had it been valuable. Well-trodden into the soil yet superlatively visible. Even by an eye in motion. I add myself, for scale.






Now it is the setting Sun. Setting over heroes, empires, and lost horizons. Check the bag again, it could have been carried along in that once upon a time. Too much of a coincidence. But there is no such kind of coincidence. Move in closer.















It's blurred: the mobile phone won't get any closer without terrible distortion and infidelity. Dive in anyway and find nothing but soil behind. Printed soil. Or an upright bottle with a cryptic message scrolled inside.

The message says:

Check the shadows

Across the mud sundial

Time lapsed

53°46'57.75N 1°36'55.13W

Wonders could be worked out with geometry alone! Even Time itself!

Then imagine what it would be like if you photographed and recorded every perfect trodden-in top you ever passed. What history you would be making.









.

The Scrollbars of Empire

Eek! A ghastly fly! So huge, so bulbous! Eek!

Screaming: the most natural thing in the world, an emergent necessity. We learn that we can modulate our screams by controlling lung pressure, mouth aperture and throat constriction at a very early age. We are quick to observe the effects on those around us. Soon we begin to manipulate those effects and thus commences the dialectic of me and you, us and them - the fundamental relationship between the self and the other, Ich und Du, Man and God, me and my Mum.

Inside us is another ontologically emergent necessity: to be observed. This is revealed to us by the blush. We show our inner disjuncture with outer circumstance. We are caught out. Our nub of being laid bare. Caught out concealing or lying? Not always. A blush reveals a deeply felt truth. I love you, but I can’t admit it. You say something, and I can’t utter the truth, therefore I blush. Emergence of self-awareness is one obvious cause the blush. I know I am being watched. I become self conscious, and I blush. Revealing the inner to the outer. The evolutionary advantage of revelation. The group knows what is going on in your head. Your body reveals inner truths unbidden.

Google ogles our whole planet and our every dealing, even our hedges and our windows. 360 degree knowledge emerges freely. Get it done before people realise there is such a thing. Total Administration gives birth to Total Surveillance. Our very connections reveal our inner workings. A cyber-blush rouges the planet in our midst.

Now we have the thousand eyes observing the one or two. Revealing more and more. The compound gaze of the fly, an instant multi-verse. As individuals, we are blinkered in our monocular screen world. Together, we are the compound eye. In homage to Flatland, we offer up our two dimensions to the implicit third. The Third Eye. The three in one creates the ten thousand things, and the ten thousand things beget twenty thousand eyes. We are watching ourselves. No Big Brother, only ourselves. 'Watching me, watching you.. ahaah'. We each enjoy surveying our realm. We ogle with Google goggles, the Self-Other toggle.

Have you ever blushed at a thought?

What is the r/evolutionary potential of that?

(And, of course, to anyone who knows their Book of Enoch - the Watchers, or Grigori, are in fact angels. Terrible ones to boot.)

Colour scheme

Had to happen. I kept seeing rentinal afterglow angels when the background was blackground. This is much more mellow. Sun-faded acquiescence. Less intensity, more readability. Illity. Hills. Bart At.

Chango who art...

I went to see and hear Chango Spasiuk at Leeds Wardrobe, on the 25th Feb.

He sat down on his chair, spread out a crimson blanket over his knees and placed his accordion in position. Not a single note. Even the band tuning up sounded like thrumming angels organising a tour of a fleetingly divine lake. He could play almost anything he could imagine. He could imagine far more than the gathered throng, you would not be alone in surmising.

It is rare that you get to see a musician who digs deep into your spirit and raises it screaming and kicking into the air like a reborn babe. The passage was easy. There was nothing at all traumatic or trammeled about the performance, almost no struggle at all on the outside. Most of the time he was playing, his countenance was serene and blissful, streaked only occasionally with seismic spasms of yearning passion. The passion of the quest. The next note, the next note, and possibly the next.

The music spanned continents, geological rifts, time zones, time signatures, tonal landscapes, the earth and the divine. All terrestrial and celestial elements were cycled, phased and fused.

He made a short speech before the final piece, expressing his passion for music. It was laudably translated by someone in the audience as he spoke. He doesn’t play for the King’s Ear, or the Dancefloor Beat, he seeks something deeper in the mystery that is music. The mystery that brings us together. As it always has. Music is our collective beacon, it lights up our individual path.

Chango is Jesus. He wouldn’t like to be called that though.




Chango’s music is quintessentially live. I have not heard any of his CDs, there is no substitute for the live experience.

Go and see him!! (And his band - Spanish guitar, percussion - mainly cajon, and violin). Did I mention them? They were excellent!)

Here is his website: click

__________________________________________________________________

Since writing this, I have have been provided with some extra information from Leeds promoter Andy Brown:

The translator was Katerina de Kapa, Chango's tour manager.

The percussion was: Peruvian cajon, caja hand drums, the pear-shaped udu & tin fiddle "n'vike"

Another review from the Leeds Wardrobe concert, see here

London concert review from Saturday, Feb 28th here

You can become a Facebook "fan" ! - here

CDs probably available only via Amazon, but we're working on that.
'Pynandi' here
'Tarafero de Mis Pagos' here

Further Angels

I have decided that this year's blog will be devoted mainly to angels. I would welcome any ideas, sources or hints about these entities.

Here are some of the ones I captured around November 2008. They are pixelly because of the incredible magnification that has had to take place.




The magnification process has created countless digital artefacts, but those of you familiar with this kind of thing will doubtless concur that digital artefacts seldom create angels. It is clear that these are the real McCoy. Swirls of light created on a cold night with exposure beyond breaking point for handheld. That's when you might see them. Or are they merely nudes descending staircases?

I am trying to find an Eastern European animation with scary angels depicted. Julian has seen it, and knows it is referred to in a book somewhere. It was shown in the Fourmations sporadic series. I have a few videotapes of these to look through (and catalogue). Makes me wistful for the good ol pioneering days of Channel 4. It is such a shame that it has finally capitulated. With the support of the BBC, I might add - here no surprise there then.


A couple of things people have said about angels that I like:

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. ~Luciano de Crescenzo - little bit about him here


You'll meet more angels on a winding path than on a straight one. ~Daisey Verlaef

More about Angels

The closer you look, the more there are. Once you see one, you start seeing them all over the place. Every day a new angel is discovered, but the heard of angels remains the same. They are known as demiurges in various Platonic clinches. In culinary terms, garlic sublimes if you have the presence of mind to add enough. The notion of 'savor' in Latin America goes well beyond our own notion of taste. Savor. Saviour. Savoir faire. Save our fayre. Fairy. Faerie. Fiery. Angel.



























12



3

City of Angels

The Angel pub here in Leeds sold me beer not to make me feel queer, but for the price of £1.42 for a pint of well-kept Sam Smith's Old Brewery. Guaranteed to floor a southerner.


Leeds is full of angels and they all avoid the church.

If every angel's terrible, how come we've got Coco Rosie? Even though they display a veno,mous disdain for the honest and humble web designer. All the more so since Flash became the Betamax of the triple-double yer. OK - it hasn't happened yet, but sites like Coco Rosie's are a good illustration of the pitfalls of Flash. Any aspiring Flash developers might do well to contact them.

Going up dem montages

Came across some old photomontage from Italy, Germany, and Russia in the Estorick Gallery. Mr Estorick had a great talent for spending money on art. He filled his car up in Italy. With paintings not gas, you silly billy!

There are some superb exhibits, but this one wasn't quite finished. It is now.

I have nothing to say about silence

.... said Mark Shahid in the Grove when confronted with the topic of silence by a professional oral historian.

Dissolution and Patriotism

Have been noticing acts of vandalism and their connective tissue. It's part of the Protestant spirit, no doubt, as established by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. Goes further back though, to those eponymous Vandals who also plundered Rome. A different Rome. Is it bound up with our love of ruins, or is our love of ruins a simple Romantic (there's that Rome again) regurgitation?

The railings near the canal are all intact but the ones guarding the terraced housing hereabouts are gone. Who made that decision? The sad fact is that the mass culling of railings for the World War 2 effort merely resulted in a load of scrap - the vast bulk of the iron was not even used in the war. So, rather than depositing our rich heritage of railings back over the lands and heads of the Vandals as shrapnel, we ended up with a few more useless scrap heaps that gradually rusted away.

What with that and Kent Meters down the road - roof taken off and left to the elements. Was a perfectly serviceable factory 3 or 4 years ago. Developers bought it to build anew for the those deserving new housings. They weren't counting on a recession. Short-term, short-sighted: gain today, gone tomorrow. Maybe the Dissolution of Monasteries should be seen as the first step towards our Nation's very own brand of Capitalism. Recall, Weber himself linked the origins of Capitalism with the rise of the Protestant work ethic. Work is the wrong word though. I have noticed the niff of Patriotism lurking beneath many of these seemingly wanton acts. Do we have a nostalgia for destruction and ruin that is redolent of the birth juices of our dearly beloved System? Was Kent Meters merely metering its own inevitable demise?

Get in there and grab what you can, don't be concerned about consequences or aesthetic loss. In which case, the sack of Rome should be seen as a prescient beacon to us all. Get down those shops and grab what you can - 'tis patriotic after all.

Here's what I grabbed from one of the walls in Kent Meters:

simplicity is always the best complex

Had a marvellous trip down to London recently taking in all sorts of sights and sounds, bounteous numbers of which were distinctly American in flavour. Indeed, in flavor and in sonor. No, less. SAVOURnSONOR. But so much of England lies undeniably neath fatal shadow of Muswell Hill.

The main purpose of the visitation was to play a concert with Stephen Flinn a drummer of international renown from Arizona who professes to be a trumpeter of the sacred skins rather than a drummer of them. Drummers always have to keep going, and that is not what he likes to do. Trumpeters are aloud to stop and jump back in when they feel like it. Not so drummers. Same could be said of bassists too, I thought. What used to concern me about playing bass solos was that everyone else stopped, so that you could fart about alone in the void. Drummers had my sympathy because they also had that privilege. The other players all had a cracking rhythm section to explore their toots and scrapes over. Seemed unjust, but necessary.

So when Stephen explains that he likes to stop playing, I got worried - since it might put the onus upon me to keep going...

...otherwise the long-suffering audience would be treated to sporadic, probably prolonged improvised silences, I surmised. Much as I adore the Cage and his ever-changing 4'33'', the ever board-treading trouper in me always likes to give the dutiful punters their money's worth and...

...it's a conversation though, said Stephen, referring to our maiden duo. I was made at ease instantly. Conversations merely have meaningful pauses - not anti-entertainment voids. As the prospect of voids diminished, my relaxation spread. Until he mentioned 'textures'. Maybe we could start with textures... ...simple things as ways-in to new conversations, but menacing things to me since that better forgotten review in The Wire commented: S&M Combo were "...texturally uninteresting...". I mumbled, hmm OK, but I was hoping we would be able to leave such contrivances behind swiftly. We set up our gear in the delightfully grafittied basement bar of the Cross Keys in King Cross. Dante was mentioned. This was to be The Klinker Club venue for the evening.

The previous night I'd been to see The Portico Quartet at the Purcell Rooms. They played after some interminably local Balinese troupe had hammered out their stuff and hammered out our brains into wafer thin strips of limp parma clam. Coincidentally, my first in depth study of folk music was that of the Gamelan. I loved the intricate verticality, instantly forgetting all I knew of (a) the first systematic 17-step gamut, (b) a system of 12 hexachords allowing for the sodomisation of all 17 pitches, and (c) the classification of the rude Bflat with other flats rather than as an essential note of the Guidonian musica recta. What really appealed in gamelan was the basis of the nem note - each gamelan register being set by the island's master maker - the nem being the highest note he could comfortably sing. Or lowest, or whistle, I forget. Either way, it was significant when the flutes joined in the clangsome dirge. I knew that the flutes were traditionally made on a different island to the gamelans, and so when they were brought in they were invariably out of tune with the main orchestra. This always intrigued me - a different musical sensibility was at work here, possibly akin to the mariachi band tonality. Sure enough, these flutes were authentic. The gaggle of disrespectful gals behind us guffawed when the flutes came in. They appeared to be out of tune. haha!

Not so the Portico Quartet. They were very in tune, and the spaceships that had landed on the stage turned out to be Hang drums. A wondrous instrument like inside-out steel pans , beautiful timbre and sonorous tonality. The playing was fairly mechanical and whilst it was clear that the bass and drums had much to offer, the whole sound was overly smooth and creamy due to a woefully derivative saxophone warbling away on top of everything. Not shutting up enough, and drowning the subtle dynamics created by the other muso-icians. I did enjoy the set though. Not everything has to be challenging and I'm sure many designer flats and bourgeois bachelor/ette ears are graced with the dulcet tones of The Portico Quartet daily. And maybe nightly. But not too nightly, because you've got to get up in the morning. Early.

It was there that I met Christian, a freelance journalist who asked me a very interesting question: what state of mind do you have to be in to do free improvisation. A provisional answer had to suffice because we were about to go into the concert. A special one, I replied. But it set me to thinking. Maybe it's not so special. We do it all the time, but we get clouded with the idea of the being on stage in front of loads of people, with an instrument and playing with someone else who you've never played with, creating some music that has never existed until then and will probably never exist again other than as a recording. You wouldn't get clouded if it was a case of boiling an egg you'd never boiled before without a timer and in s a strange saucepan in someone else's kitchen. Would you? Either it comes out OK or it doesn't. The worst thing is an uncooked boiled egg, so you might err on the overcook. That's OK - it's still edible. I will not get started on the method of navigation by deliberate error. I will not mention Ken Dodd. Damn. Did!

Having a conversation with too many holes and too much tentativeness could lead to an undercooked performance. Not good. My natural tendency is to do too much as a result of that fear. Fear of the void. Although I am actually quite happy to go into the void. I find it has a noise though. The void is not silent. Hugh and I collided in loving embrace and my orange and soda went flying, rendering the floor very sticky for the rest of the night. Stephen kept thinking I was drinking alcohol. I re-assured him that I never drank alcohol before an improvisation. It seriously impairs the ability to shut up. Labradors and Leeds...announced Hugh. Leashes, corrected Stephen.

It was decided that we'd play third and that Matt Scott Jukebox would play his Deleted Scenes first. The thought of dulcet, nay oft-time mournful, accordion wheezing over some tight backing drum loops wouldn't appeal to all and seemed to slant its way across the hidden grammar of the Klinker Club like a shifty crab, but I felt curiously comforted by the sounds and was reminded of our dearly beloved dog Pippen, who passed away at the beginning of this monstrous year. Pippen used to howl her threnodies over the accordion playing of one Jack Glover when he warbled in a particular register in the lower octave. I could hear the howling then. A police car wailed past, and Stephen attempted to hush the gaggle of gals who were rude enough to talk through many of the carefully constructed pieces.

Earlier that day I'd been to see two promising exhibitions. The first of which was the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. If anything demanded silence, it was a Rothko. How so little can demand so much attention is difficult to comprehend. It is not so little, of course. The monotones are intricately layered crepuscular spectra that speak of an alien geology as well as a peculiarly human otherness. I was at once reminded of a monotony of childish window drawings - each one sharing elements of some primal paradigm, but at the same time I felt as though I was in the presence of some of the highest religious art I'd ever witnessed. A religion devoid of God. A religion of the void. They were at once beautiful and terrifying, both comforting and incredibly disturbing.

Three simple things: frame, line and tone (purposefully overlooking texture, of course). Infinite combinations and contexts possible. They spoke eloquently of inside and outside with an apparently simple vocabulary. All that was needed was some form of containment, I muttered. A quizzical look from Josh... I responded: I quote myself. Of course, came the wry reply.

Particularly incredible were the scans of the layerings of paint. This was true archaeology. Such complexity of structure.

The next act came on at the Klinker. When was it changed from C to K? Originally the Clinker. No doubt a scatalogical Metcalfian reference. A sea change, came the piece of concrete poetry, my shoes were stuck to the invisible orange on the black floor, the suckers on my soles plucked the ground like an octopus. It was time for Droneowniam - pythagorean sound sculptures by Giles Leaman . Impressive drone based hand made instruments that fell a-art as they were played. I was put in mind of some Max Eastley work and was comforted to find out that Giles was indeed fundamentally acquainted with the said. I was also comforted by the observation that low-tech has just as many problems as high-tech sometimes when it comes to live performance. The sounds were beautiful, eerily aliuen but also very human. This I liked a lot. The gaggle of gals did titter somewhat at the oddness of the constructions and playing methods. That was to be expected. Stephen shushed them though before he went for his espresso. Our time would be next.

The Warhol exhibition was an altogether different, probably opposite, experience. Ever since I came across the Velvet Underground in the 1970s, I have had an affinity with the sheer exuberance and eclecticism of our dearly beloved Andy. Ignore me, I'm deeply shallow. Indeed, one of the first pieces of music I did with my son Josh was a threnody composed upon his passing. Andy Warhol is dead, six foot under. Josh had to sing and play the balloon, as I recall. He did both with great aplomb. The exhibition at the Hayward was very well laid out with some intriguing installations like a cube composed of elements of the American flag and housing 42 TV episodes. The seats were the stars and the stripes were in the form of a finely beaded curtain surrounding the cube. The music of the Velvets and Nico droned out and there were far too many things to get round. More like a permanent exhibition than just a few months. A few trips would be necessary to take it all in - which is appropriate. Consequently, I didn't take much in, a mere sniff up the sleeve, so to speak. Another layer in my understanding, possibly of varnish.

What state of mind was I now in? Full of all these things, but also empty. A black canvas with an intricate hidden archaeology of strokes and scrapings? The cello reassured me that I was in my own kitchen and here was my saucepan. So the time came to play...

The above mp3 is one of the pieces we improvised at The Klinker Club, Cross Kings, London on 20th November 2008. This was the first time I played with Stephen Flinn. He is quite an exceptional trombonist, and I am sincerely looking forward to our shaving cream sponsored tour of the Grand Canyon. And that's in America, folks!

Hey, Steve - I'd say lay down your trumpet and take up your katana: you are a samurai of the sacred skin and assemblage of percussive objects. I look forward to our next conversation when S(M)S will become SMS.

By the way, lovely pictures of the gig, courtesy of Josh - many thanks.

On to the final act: we were then regaled with a stomping joanna camp-angst set from Johnny Blimey. That will have to be the subject of a subsequent blog. At this juncture, it will suffice to say: check him out. As the play came to time...


On the way home I drove a few miles in the wrong direction to drop Stephen off in Hackney. He treated us to stories of an LA cab driver all the way, guns, prostitutes, psychopaths, all in a day's work - Josh navigated inexorably. We bade our farewells and headed back to Muswell Hill - seemingly the other side of London. On the way, the police greeted me with a breathalyser. Another blog on London and Cars will be necessary. Grr. Got back very late and played a game of chess where an extraordinary series of knight moves sealed the game for me.

Next day we breakfatted heartily and then visited the oft overlooked wonder of Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally), overlooking the whole of London. It puts things in perspective. Everything that happens down there in that murky dish so tiny. So simple.

t

"now we're gonna be famous!"

I took the above picture in the grounds of the Alexandra Palace. For some reason, these guys badgered me to take a picture of them, they were convinced it would make them famous. I'm certainly not going to stand in the way of that.

Nest High

It's been a long time since then. I am now back. I improvised some lyrics and played guitar. here are the lyrics. I will put an MP3 up of the song.


Nest High

Nest high
In the tree
Big black bird

Because then
You’ll bring us
A good summer.


Get stuck on the edge
Of the weir
Little leaf

Because then
We shall have
A fine autumn.


Blow through
This glass
Little wind

... then
There will be
A still winter.


Rage and burn
You tiny spark
Bush-flagration

Clear the ground
and clear the people

Make way

Mei kwei, mei kwei,
Nanananana
Mei kwei, mei kwei,
Nanananana

Make way for

Our dark spring.






.

Number Eleven

I have just listened to Portishead P3 for the first time. The playing appliance is good. It has deeply resonant speakers with good top and uncardboardy middle. The CD was on at 37% volume, which is pretty loud in a small soundproof box. I listened through. The track I'd heard before, Machine Gun on Jooles Nertherlund, sounded so much better cranked up on a good system. Don't get me wrong. Our TV-combi has a splendid audio contraption. No, it wasn't that.

Live show digression - that ol live sound recording problem: PAs + ambient sound mixed 'correctly' = perennial nightmare. I was surprised to see that they played the clapped out drum machine parts live on midi pads. The studio CD was perfectly produced, of course. Therein lies the impossible comparison. Why do bands like this feel the need to perform live? No deviation from the CD apart from a few over-dubs. And it must be acknowledged that the 'live' show is not exactly dynamic. I expect they get paid well.

Back to listening to the CD - the machine gun track stuck its neck above the shoulders of the previous, impressive nonetheless, pieces. I was not tempted to turn up the volume though, because I was engaged in another project. I simply listened.

The final 20 seconds had me reaching for the volume knob, regardless. I shoved it up to 42% (considerably loud) at exactly the point the CD finished. Now that: I call a good album.

Number Eleven refers to Nigel Tufnel's volume knob, and is only coincidentally related to the fact that this is the eleventh posting.

Five Authors not in search of a Critic

The illustrious and industrious Michael Lewin has alighted upon 5 debut novelists, including myself, with the hope of developing a creative insight into the forms and raison d’être of the contemporary novel. In particular, he will be focusing on our individual motivations, justifications and aspirations for the works. Does the e-slaught of modern media render the novel vagrant? Do we have the balls to use paper anymore? Why write a novel at all? These and many more questions will be addressed over the coming weeks.

Michael himself is a rising star in the Critical Firmament, having sharpened his considerable teeth on the current popular music scene, he is now lunching on Notion Magazine and TVBomb. In his own words, he is a ‘Man of Letters and Would-be Wealthy Dilettante’. May the would-be submerge within the wealth.

Fare thee well!

ST. Jude:










Patron saint of lost causes.

Voice

Been thinking, listening and doing a lot with voices of late. Coincidentally, the Sonic Arts CD this quarter is called Blood, Muscle - the intimate voice have had one listen. I find it comforting, but it is not shaking me.

Also working my way through Plastic Fuzz's Dots - being a 100 song bumperthon! I have had one listen to the last two CDs of the 4 CD set, and it has rather a lot of content to go with its style. It is formidable. My critique will take some time, as did the opus. For now, my friends, I will say buy it! For it is worthy and reasonably priced.

The issue of the voice arises once more. Author, owner, speaker, singer.

I reminisce about Mick Jagger's rendering of 'It's the singer not the song'.

Learning these old croony songs has become very interesting.

Moon River set off a whole ripple of activity.
My noble son took it upon himself to learn the very chord structure I had cobbled, which he did with great aplomb and accomplishment. My sole source was the immortal Audrey, of course. The chords are not straightforward for a beginner and this was revealed when discussing the finer cadences with my illustrious daughter. It proved necessary, in that case, to prune a little. I got it down to 3 two finger power jobbies and it began to sound like early Lou Reed. She has since perfected that veritable version. What could I do but go on? I will publish a couple of versions very soon. And one each from Josh and Anna, I hope. I love that song. Apart from the Huckleberry bit. I have changed that 'you're just around the bend, my fine mud mason friend'. So far.

Working on the Moon Song Project (Hogmancer) has raised another set of issues. Learning how to sing as near to properly as I can get - again. I have had that from time to time, but it is interesting working with pre-existing material. How you accomodate that is challenging but also ultimately easier than writing and performing.

Mederic Collignon - Improlibration - provocative and a whole load of stuff that isn't in English yet. Liberation and that kind of thing. The subversive nature of all improv. Made into a thing.

David Moss - Wittgenstein - not bad, cooler than the previous.

Koichi Makigami 'Inside Out' simply stunning.

Horray! S&M Combo have been invited to play again at Battersea Arts Centre on 27th February. The last gig we played there (Spring last year - or before even) was admired particularly by Harry. I remember hardly playing a note, and sweating profusely. It was as if the beads of sweat had taken the place of the notes. The few notes I did make must have made some sort of impression.

"Gavriel Lipkind… proves that he is certainly the finest cellist playing today."

Bernard Greenhouse, 2006

Has just asked to be our friend on myspace. I feel honoured.

So not everything's bad, eh? Ay!

Oh, and this guy - Crank Surgeon is great.

Bafornar. x