Here goes with a series of posts bringing you up to date with exhibitions going on in Brussels. For some reason October is especially rich.

First ... the Japanese Modern Art selection at the Bozar. Frankly, it's a major disappointment. I went hungry for works by the great Yu-ichi Inoue & found only the one - and annoyingly shielded behind highly reflective glass. It was virtually impossible to appreciate the brush marks given the superimposition of either yourself or other works on the other walls.

Nevertheless, my first direct encounter with his work. (There's a show in Frankfurt but four hours driving there & back is just a bit too much).

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& more ear food ...

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(note: this is the trumpeter not the bassist of the same name)

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(I was looking for the Belcea Quartet but this is meant to be good, too)

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(overplayed, perhaps, but the Midnight Cowboy theme gets under the skin)

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The current ear food ...

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Something to do with the arrival of Autumn ... an appetite for string quartets & solo piano ... 

Puzzling ... how can the first Brahms String Quartet have such an immediate effect & the 4th Symphony (yes, the ever so famous Fourth, conducted no less by my hero Carlos Kleiber, a performance that everyone agrees is unsurpassed) leave me so utterly ... cold ... indifferent ... bored even?

Hackneyed melodies ... bombast ... staggering rhythms.

(& yes, I know this must sound as utter philistinism).

My rule of thumb on Brahms: the fewer instruments the better.

Renault Clio IV wind noise update.

Boring as it may be for some readers, I feel a responsibility to follow an earlier post about wind noise.

Due to a recent visit to the garage to have two dents repaired (the first was my fault trying to avoid a wooden pillar while parking; the second was the fault of a waste disposal van driver early one Sunday morning on Folkestone harbour front reversing without looking) I was given a replacement car for the week. A silver grey Clio IV diesel & within seconds of accelerating on the Ring that tell-tale noise began. Yep. Each model suffers from the turbulence caused by the wing mirror design.

Consider this before buying ...

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So I take myself off to the local museum & mooch around the Oriental collection (other than a family of three, I was the only person there at 10 o'clock). 

Not much calligraphy on display but there is this scroll beneath a glass case. There wasn't any explanatory text in evidence & - needless to say - I can't decipher it. But I am utterly entranced by the brushwork. With my index finger I trace the strokes in mid-air, trying to recapture the descent of the brush, the moment of contact, the movement, the 'taction' with paper, the lift. Then the return to the ink pot before taking the plunge again. 

In the lower example, look at the character fifth column, eighth down. Or sixth column first row. Breath taking. 

&, by way of contrast, the restrained elegance of the top example - which was written to the right hand side of the sheet. 

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only the main computer seems to be able to load the pictures

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One of the ongoing problems with this Blog has been the refusal of various apps to upload posts containing images.

Here's a new attempt.

These are collaged fragments from the Turin workshop - a series of preliminary strokes made on the wrapping of the sumptuous Arches paper we were working upon.

So here goes ...

... & lo & behold it fails. Again.

If anyone knows what the problem is then please let me know.

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Thunder & lightning (7:50 pm). The first movement of Tristan & Isolde playing on BBC Radio 3.

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I listened to the first Brahms String Quartet earlier this afternoon & fell under the spell. Am I right in hearing a motif from the Clarinet Quintet in the second movement?

Question: why don't I respond to the Symphonies in the same way?

Whose recording might work the magic? (I have the budget Karajan).

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New month & a new look.

& this to listen to ...

 

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Every cloud has a silver lining ...

... today's announcement that Mary Berry will hand in the oven gloves & resign from TGBBO is sad as such - someone who seems to be genuinely decent, knowledgable & not some overnight one-trick wonder - but more than compensated by hearing that Paul Hollywood will follow the sticky dough to Channel 4 where (surely) the show will sink like an under-heated Yorkshire pudding.

(Truly the Son of Clarkson. Vroom-vroom! Await the obscene salary & spin-off deals. Then the behind the camera tantrums ... )

Not forgetting the welcome news that the pun in the arse sisters - Mel & Sue - will stand down. The icing on the cake.

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While still in posting mode ... I had the misfortune to hear the resurrected Radio Active 'comedy' (sic) on Radio 4. Embarrassing from start to finish. Thirty years ago that kind of Edinburgh fringe-sub Python-John Cleese asperity still had some edge. Today ... er ... Who, I wonder, gave it the nod?

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Whereas ... in preparation for a series of classes on Beckett I watched The Music Box on the e-board - a Laurel & Hardy short from (I'm guessing) the 40s?

Pure joy.

The way Stan lifts his leg with his hand - as if communication with this limb has broken down ... How Oliver reproaches Stan for being stupid trying to lift the piano off the carriage on his own only to insist on kneeling down for it to slide over his back ... The constant twang of piano strings implying the instrument must be falling to bits inside the box ...

A student who happens by watches entranced.

This kind of comedy has no sell by date.

Apologies for the rather lengthy silence. Things are still ticking along.

Expect a post or two on the Turin Calligraphy Experience ...