ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER THING

Recent mention by Marja-Leena and Cassandra Pages and Tasting Rhubarb of La Vie en Rosé   led to a very welcome upsurge in my stats which, like every other blogger in blogdom, I obsessively check now and then - oh allright, very frequently - to see whether I am loved more than I am ignored. Come to think of it, that's a life-long preoccupation.

Anyway, Dorothee Lang who, amongst many other things, is editor of the Blueprint Review noted Jean's mention of the Augustine comic strips and invited me to join mycomics.de   an online community of comics creators. Of course I was happy to do so and, thanks to Dorothee's help, my complete INERTIA strip is now uploaded there.The site is mainly in German but comics from other countries also appear and international participation is encouraged. Gradually I will be posting more strips to this friendly and well-designed site. 

Yesterday was the christening of Lewis - my niece Sarah and her husband Elliott's second baby - and the occasion was blessed by fabulous Spring weather and perfect location: an English village's 13th Century church with great pub across the road where we all gathered for lunch after a cheerful Anglican service during which the round infant, dressed in pinstriped mini-waistcoat, white shirt, green socks and black corduroy trousers, seemed puzzled but smiled graciously. 

When the guests were eating lunch at long wooden tables in the pub garden, I remembered part of a dream I had about a week or so ago in which the same image appeared. I've been thinking about so-called pre-cognitive dreams, which I have fairly often. The pre-cognitive bit is usually quite banal, just ordinary scenes from ordinary life which I see in a dream and then, a variable time later, encounter in waking life. I'm aware of the theories, debates, experiments etc. on this subject but I want to follow my own ruminations about it and see where they lead. 

I'm starting from the premise that some dreams can foresee events/scenes which have not yet taken place in 'real time': how would this process work? My intuition says that there's nothing supernatural about it but that it's an actual process happening constantly although we are rarely aware of it. Here's the gist of notes I was writing while having breakfast this morning:

Suppose the events of our day are like the successive frames in a film - say, 24 frames per second or some other fps - but we don't see separate frames, only one continuous strip. Suppose something different happens when we're asleep and dreaming: the film speeds up and the gaps between frames narrows, they become somewhat compressed. But our perception remains the same as it was when awake so we're actually seeing some of the next frames because they overlap. So maybe what seems like foreseeing a future event is simply looking at the present that we haven't caught up with yet in 'real time' because 'dream-time' goes faster. 

Yes, I know there are all sorts of  problems with this conjecture but it's only a start. I will expand it with some animation/video experiments when I've worked out how to do it. These are the kinds of questions that really excite me and it doesn't bother me that I'm not qualified to explore them - no degrees in physics, neurology, psychology, biology, you-name-it-ology. So? Who's gonna stop me?

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JUNG THOUGHTS FROM A WISE OLD MAN

It's many years since I first encountered C.G. Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections. At the time, in my habitually over-eager way of demonstrating camaraderie with certain thinkers, I emphatically underlined many passages in this book. I have been re-reading it now and am amused to find that those passages are exactly the ones that I would underline now if I hadn't already done so. 

Here is Dr. Jung, after his trip to India, reflecting on the differences between his outlook and the Indian form of spirituality:

I, on the other hand, wish to persist in the state of lively contemplation of nature and of the psychic images. I do not want to be freed from human beings, nor from myself, nor from nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles. Nature, the psyche, and life appear to me like divinity unfolded - and what more could I wish for?To me the supreme meaning of Being can consist only in the fact that it is , not that it is not or is no longer.

To me there is no liberation à tout prix. I cannot be liberated from anything that I do not possess, have not done, or experienced. Real liberation becomes possible for me only when I have done all that I was able to do, when I have completely devoted myself to a thing and participated in it to the utmost. 

Amen!


A new illustration has been added to EPISODE FIFTEEN of La Vie en Rosé. Go there to see it full size.

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MORE ABOUT MY FATHER: Part Four

I stayed on in Florence for a year after we all left the Villa Ulivi but that story will go into my autobio when I get around to filling in the many blanks in time and space. Right now we're talking about my Papa. In the photo below he's arriving at an airport - I'm not sure where or when - but it's so characteristic of him: the eternal traveller, always arriving or leaving 

My father had many theories and one which he wrote, re-wrote and talked a great deal about over the years was called: The Focus of Perception . It was the basis for his next project and also influenced his observations of people in general. Here are some edited quotes which I've selected from his notes:

The premise of The Focus of Perception is that the mind contains a mechanism or process similar to a camera lens which, by its aperture and angle, determines the way people, situations and events are perceived and thus one's emotional and intellectual responses to them. This process is psychological, not visual, but the camera is a useful metaphor to describe it. 

Not only do we contradict one another, but we also tend to contradict ourselves. Human contradiction and its effects, whether on a personal or a global scale, might be better understood if the Focus of Perception was observed in action within one's self and in others' behavior and attitudes. Relationships, whether between individuals, groups or nations, often undergo a cavalcade of contradictory states, affirmations and negations, depending on the angle at which the Focus is set, how wide the angle is and whether it is static or fluctuating. 

There is a great difference between understanding another person through their focus and trying to understand them only through one's own. In the absence of a strong motivation - such as love, a specific goal, or the desire for truth - we see no reason to change our Focus of Perception and we passively accept whatever focus is provided by our upbringing, environment, or the winds of fashion. But if we become aware of our focal position in relation to others, it becomes possible to change what had seemed immutable in ourselves.

We are prisoners within the boundaries of our current focus only if we accept to be imprisoned in this optic. To change one's focal position, it is necessary first of all to change it on a specific subject or problem: to make a leap. This might result in moving to a position diametrically opposed to our current stance. With further small steps, a change may occur in our perception of the particular issue, and thence a gradual opening of our understanding of the larger picture.

Sacha's new undertaking, although rooted in the above premise, took shape in a less theoretical way. He called it Who Do You Think You Are . This happens to be the name of a current television series but I'm fairly sure they don't know that my father thought of the title long ago. Anyway the TV series is about celebrities looking into their genealogical history. Sacha's project was something else entirely. 

He began by contacting three people: Françoise Sagan, whose slim first novel Bonjour Tristesse  had propelled her to instant fame; Art Buchwald, the witty satirist whose regular column in the Washington Post my father loved; and Gipsy Rose Lee, the burlesque stripper/actress. When his project was described to them they agreed to take part. There was no connection between these three and I have no idea what prompted Sacha to choose them as subjects for his enquiry. 

He recorded audio interviews with each of them, asking them to describe how they saw themselves. Separate interviews were then arranged with some of their friends, acquaintances and colleagues, to record their own views of these individuals. The aim of the exercise was to demonstrate that the image we have of ourselves frequently contradicts the impressions others have of us. No conclusions or judgements were offered as to which views were the 'truer' ones. We were simply asked to consider the possibility that 'who we think we are' is open to many interpretations. 

In one of those amazing synchronicities that the blogosphere occasionally generates, Jean in her perceptive review of Summertime by J.M. Coetzee, seems to have tuned into my father's thinking and into what I was about to blog concerning it. She wrote on 19 November:

It's something we could all do: speculate on how our intimates might describe us. But, think about it, put yourself there... I can quickly see that I'd do one of two things: construct a rosy, seamless image - the wish-fulfilment version, or go way the other way and indulge my darkest fantasies of how they all disliked and despised me really. 

The audio interviews were only the preliminary stage: Sacha's intention was to make a film, if funding could be raised. This didn't happen and Who DoYou Think You Are was shelved and forgotten. But at least the memory of it now lives on, here in this tiny corner of cyberspace. 

Before ending this flashback into some of my father's creative adventures, there's one more I must mention: the thirteen minute film, Report on Love , a comic commentary on the Kinsey Report, produced and directed by Sacha in 1955.

When Dr. Kinsey first heard of the film he prepared to sue, without having seen it. But after a preview was arranged especially for him at Indiana University (where he was Professor of Zoology) he changed his mind and the film went ahead, screened in cinemas across the USA as the 'featurette' along with major films; it was even nominated for an Academy Award. Below is a write-up from Picture Week in New York. 

 

 

I have a copy of the film on VHS tape and watched it again a few days ago. It is extremely dated conceptually and technically but quite clever, combining animation and live action. Light-weight stuff compared to Sacha's other projects but I think he was hoping this one would achieve commercial success. It didn't, but so what? It was not gold but a little glitter never hurt anyone. 

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MORE ABOUT MY FATHER: Part 2

Fast forwarding, skipping over Sacha's South American and other ventures because I want to focus on the more off-beat things his restless imagination drove him to undertake. Come to think of it, everything he undertook was off the beaten track. 

Here he is in Florence - I don't know who took the above photo but it strikingly captures him in inward-turned, isolated mood, oblivious to his surroundings. Whatever the triggers which could set off his recurrent bouts of melancholy, Sacha's response was always to leave, move, travel far away and begin something new. In this instance New York was the place he left and the something new was an idea he conceived - perhaps on the way from one city to the next - for which a special house in special surroundings was required. Once an idea had taken root in my father's mind it began growing instantly, spreading antennae in all directions and locating with extraordinary serendipity all the elements needed for its realisation. Thus he found the special house in the special surroundings: it was called Villa Ulivi, within walking distance of the heart of Florence - you could see the Duomo from the rooftop terrace. 

How Sacha came to discover this magnificent fifteenth century residence I do not know but he did, and it happened to be for rent, and so he rented it for several months. Apart from a photo of my recently resurrected painting (see January 20, 2010) of cypress trees in the garden, the only picture I can find of the villa is the black and white snapshot below. Yesterday, on the off-chance, I googled Villa Ulivi and...what do you know?...the Villa is alive and well and has become a hotel (I borrowed the colour picture of the house from their website). A very nice hotel apparently but I don't recognise the current interior decoration. When Sacha moved in, and later on all our family, there was very little furniture, only a few beautiful, darkly austere Renaissance antiques.

 

Sacha named his project The House of Contrasts. Here's a summary, taken from a description written after the event: 

It was proposed that a demonstration of positive and negative stereotyped views about each other held by two cultures, American and European, presented in dramatic fashion and in uninterrupted succession, could produce an enlightening psychological shock. This shock would help to crystallize one's own manner of seeing and perhaps also come a step closer to the goal: a kinder and more tolerant understanding of one person, or one nation, towards another.


The experiment was tested on groups of American college students on a cultural tour of Italy. A Florentine villa was the setting for the demonstration and the script, narration, music and graphic presentation was prepared by voluntary collaboration between American and Europeans. The stereotype views were shown in allegorical fashion, inspired by Dante: the negative clichés were 'Inferno' while the positive ones were 'Contrastland'. The reactions, opinions and criticisms of each group of students who visited the House of Contrasts were tape-recorded to serve as valuable records for further exploration of this theme. 

I was in New York pursuing my art education when my father's idea and Villa Ulivi got together and the House of Contrasts began to take shape. At first I resisted his urging me to come and work on the visual presentation - I felt it would distract me from my own path. But Sacha's power of persuasion was hard to resist, especially when it offered such an intriguing situation in such tempting surroundings.

I'd better continue this in another post, otherwise I'm just going to be at this computer all night. Part 3 coming up next - is anyone still here? 

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COMING SOON: Pin-ups continued

The reason I've been procrastinating about blogging lately is because of major procrastinatitis about finishing a project I began a while back. All my projects seem to have begun 'a while back' - some time in the Neanderthal period.

Anyway this particular one is to make a video thingy to further explore those faces, my pin-ups, first posted on 23 March . I'm in the middle of working (euphemism for playing around) on it and it should be up soon.

It's a fascinating subject. What subject? Hard to describe exactly. Something to do with a specific arrangement of facial features (male, in this case) which certain individuals have in common, along with astonishingly similar psychological characteristics. It's as if they are from the same tribe, even though in reality they are not related. The other puzzle is what makes this type - or, as I prefer to think of it: this particular assemblage of features - so damned attractive?

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EMOTION, REPETITION, EROSION

Click to Play

PERMALINK


By the way, in case you're wondering, the voices don't express how I'm feeling at present!


This audio-visual experiment is the result of my current thinking about emotions - specifically the unhappy kind - and how they shape the mind and body by constant repetition, like the slow drip-drip of water on stone. Somewhere in our inner album of memories there must be a key frame, a feeling or sequence of feelings we experienced very deeply in response to something. So deeply that it began a process of repetition which perhaps continues to this day, even if we have forgotten the original event.

Anything in our present reality which even vaguely resembles that original key frame acts as a trigger and can start up the whole sequence again, ringing that Pavlov bell. I'm fascinated by how repetition works on the mind and body, both in negative and positive ways, and how we can consciously alter a process which has, by force of repetition, become unconscious. Devising strategies to create new patterns, those we want rather than being trapped in those we don't want, is fertile territory for the imagination to explore. I prefer to approach subjects like this adventurously and playfully rather than to rely on the vast body of accumulated knowledge. If I come to similar observations, so much the better, but I'll do it my way......my wa..a...aaa..y!

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Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: emotions, negative, feelings, voices, repetition, child, woman, man, water dripping, stone, erosion, time, psyche

PARENTS

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Philip Larkin

Writing about my mother inevitably brings up thoughts about my parents, my childhood, and all sorts of paths leading in and out of that territory, partly factual, partly selective memory and partly buried emotion. The first line of Larkin's poem is so famous because it's so true. It echoes with everyone, or nearly everyone, who has had parents. Some of the things we are fucked up about do not come from our parents but some do, that's undeniable.

Being a good parent, or a 'good enough' parent, is a talent which doesn't necessarily pop up the minute a baby lands in the arms and the life of a formerly baby-free woman and her mate (if a mate is present). Some people are hopeless at the parenting art, some struggle to learn it and a few - very few, in my opinion - take to it like ducks to water or cats to kittens.

I feel very fortunate to have had the parents I had, not because they were good parents (they were not) but because they were two interesting, complex and marvellous people I got to know very well by virtue of being one of their children. As a child - and sometimes far into adulthood - a Parent is seen only in capital letters. Those letters might spell love or rage or need but they are always capitalised. It takes a lot of growing up to finally accept that Parents are only people, ordinary humans just like us.

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