A Shout Out Isn't Appropriate

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/hayward-touring/future/john-cage-every-day-is-a-good-day

John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day

This new Hayward Touring Exhibition will be the first major retrospective in the UK of the visual art of the American composer and artist John Cage (1912–1992). The exhibition has been conceived by Jeremy Millar and is organised with the close support and guidance of the John Cage Trust, in collaboration with BALTIC


... There are over one hundred works in the show including drawings, watercolours and prints. Although the exhibition will focus on his visual art, each venue will be programming a series of events that explore other aspects of Cage’s practice, music especially, but also writing, dance, performance and film.

18 June - 5 September 2010
BALTIC, Gateshead

25 September - 14 November 2010
Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

20 November - 9 January 2011
Museum and Art Gallery, Huddersfield

19 February - 3 April 2011
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow

16 April - 5 June 2011
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea

In For A Penny

I'm not sure how to recover from a three day conference in insufferable heat,* but last week was not the way to do it. I so need to get back to reading and watching seventies stuff, but this week I had to read and comment on a PhD thesis, and ponder whether the c and related p words are appropriate discourse for a thesis which is, after all, about people who display their [thank yous] for a living. Why so coy? If you can talk about it, you can use the word. I just have a vision of startled horses.

And editing prose, that of others', I seem to have had a fetish for eliminating the repetition of any word bar "of", "an", "a" or "the" in a sentence. And ideally between consecutive sentences. But then that collides with rhetorical flourishes. On the other hand, there should be a limit to how many time the word "which" can be used in a sentence (even allowing for the fact that there are mysterious, Atlantic-differentiated, rules for when it ought to be "that").

Then there was the summer school, which was advertised as being on comedy and gender, but the organiser had been confused by my consistent use of the phrase "comedy and race". The kids were actually quite smart, although apparently the solution for racism is for the butts of it to get over it. Chiz. Interestingly, whilst the black man's cock joke of The Office (see here) was not felt to be racist, the unknowable intention of Black People Love Us was.

Oh, and note to self, if you feel a sympathique with someone, at least think to get their name. It makes stalking them so much easier.

Meanwhile, I appear to be acquiring conferences - although I'll think twice about the big vampire one. Part of the operating strategy might be to push forward the comedy research (and I had a word with the supplier to my dealer, last night). Having thought through what to do with a conference on memory and quite liking the suggestion of Life on Mars, I have mysteriously acquired a copy of The Nature of Nicholas (thanks to tilo) without giving credit cards details to a firm specialising in adult and naturist films; in the mean time someone whispered another title in my ear in a different context, and that also does the seventies thing for me. Result.

Now to find a night where I get to bed earlier than 2am.



* One solution involves a bar, and a monologue punctuated by "and another thing...". Catharsis is us.

2010 Reading XCI-CIX

Catch up time (and not necessarily in this order or a complete listing):

XCI: D.G. Compton, Chronocules
XCII: D.G. Compton, A Usual Lunacy
XCIII: Michael Coney Sysygy
XCIV: Michael Coney Mirror Image
XCV: Michael Coney Brontomek!
XCVI: Michael Coney Charisma
XCVII: Christopher Priest, A Dream of Wessex
XCVIII: Christopher Priest, Fugue for a Darkening Isle
XCIX: K.W. Jeter, Seeklight
C: K.W. Jeter, The Dreamfields
CI: K.W. Jeter, Morlock Night
CII: Suzette Haden Elgin, The Communipaths
CIII: Suzette Haden Elgin, Furthest
CIV: Suzette Haden Elgin, At the Seventh Level
CV: Suzette Haden Elgin, Star-Anchored, Star-Angered
CVI: H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau
CVII: Brian Aldiss, Moreau's Other Island
CVIII: Barry Malzberg, The Sodom and Gomorrah Business
CIX: Barry Malzberg, Revelations

2010 Films LX-LXXII

Catch up, no doubt missing stuff:

LX: Slutty Summer (Casper Andrea, 2005) - dull gay indie
LXI: Shock to the System (Ron Oliver, 2006) - enjoyable crime TVM
LXII: 3-Day Weekend (Rob Williams, 2008) - away for the weekend in ski lodge comedy
LXIII: Mr Brooks (Bruce A. Evans, 2007) - Kevin Costner is highly recommended movie shock - as is Demi Moore. Go rent. Now.
LXIV: It's Alive (Larry Cohen, 1974) - baby horror
LXV: It Lives Again (Larry Cohen, 1978) - son of baby horror
LXVI: It's A Wonderful Afterlife (Gurinda Chada, 2010) - Ealing style comedy with Asian twist, the funniest bit being a pointless Carrie homage
LXVII: Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010) - Ealing style comedy with Jihad twist, go see - although London looks rather like Sheffield
LXVIII: Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, 2004) - the sort of film Tarantino tries but fails to make - barking but brilliant
LXIX: The Kid Stays in the Picture (Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen, 2002) - talking book, with pictures; Robert Evans's autobiography
LXX: Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo (Vincent McEveety, 1977) - VW falls in love and evades evil diamond thieves
LXXI: Herbie Rides Again (Robert Stevenson, 1974) - VW evades evil property development corporation
LXXII: Herbie Goes Bananas (Vincent McEveety, 1980) - VW evades evil archeologists

Totals: 72 (Cinema: 18; DVD: 43; TV: 11)