That time of year again ...

uthuthful

uthuthful (n/v)

1. That ordinarily happens (an urn-shaped process, a crystalline principle, a tingling pain). 2. Of a person i) who walks before; ii) who arrives before another; iii) who has charge of the door. 3. To fossil a moth. 4. Astr. In the constellation of C minor. 

Tonight: La Regle du Jeu (Jean Renoir)

Just a thought - is this where John Cleese and Connie Booth got the idea of the Major for Fawlty Towers?

thuth

thuth (n/v)

1. Said of things to cut a tongue on. 2. In addition; furthermore, besides, also. Reduplicated for emphasis. 3. Med. Wedge-shaped glands inserted into a groove as a religious practice or rite. 4. Words spoken on the night following this. 

Yesterday I absent-mindedly started filling up the car with petrol when - *!?#*!&*! - I remember it's a diesel engine. Panic. Phone calls. Q: How much had I put in? A: 3 litres (in a 60 litre tank). Apparently that's OK providing you resume filling up with diesel.

Having made the trip back to Brussels this morning without kangarooing, explosions or the car falling to bits I think I got away with it. (Fingers crossed).

But what an idiot.

slhuth

slhuth (n/v)

1. An ink-knife choked with clinkers. 2. Vowels glide obliquely across sea and sky. 3.i) A piece of nimble. ii) Smut driven between the bilgeways. 4. Hist. The Counts of Warps to different sets of slay. 

rhuth

rhuth (n/v)

1. A native of nests and handwriting circles around the object. 2. Dimensional extent or a form of type pertaining to the vernacular. 3. A memory frolic after the introduction of matter. Varying locally. 4. A broken perfume resembling penguins.

quhuth

quhuth (v/n)

1. To wince the tender flesh. 2. i) Profit flowing through veins. ii) Motion of the foetus. iii). Productive of interest. 3. In theological matters (fig.) a question found under the nails. 

spin/gnosis

o

Dropped by work this morning & found this had arrived in my absence. Perfect timing! I take a breather from Cinema I to gulp down Chapters One (Life of Spinoza) and Six (Spinoza and Us) - admittedly perhaps the 'easy' ones. 

As always with Deleuze there are sentences that burst upon the brain and concepts that pull things unexpectedly together (e.g. p126 and his discussion of ethology and relations - "Now we are concerned, not with a relation of a point to counterpoint, nor with the selection of a world, but with a symphony of Nature, the composition of a world that is increasingly wide and intense. In what order and in what manner will the powers, speeds, and slowness be composed?" - which cries out for an extension to Zappa's Project/Object and theory of the Big Note).

And what about this on pages 129-30:

"He is a philosopher who commands an extraordinary conceptual apparatus, one that is highly developed, systematic, and scholarly; and yet he is the quintessential object of an immediate, unprepared encounter, such that a non philosopher, or even someone without any formal education, can receive a sudden illumination from him, a 'flash'. Then it is as if one discovers that one is a Spinozist; one arrives in the middle of Spinoza, one is sucked up, drawn into a system or the composition ... the individual who, without being a philosopher, receives from Spinoza an affect, a set of affects, a kinetic determination, an impulse, and makes Spinoza an encounter, a passion."

- which is pretty much the experience of reading Deleuze himself. 

... the search ...

o

"Besides, I was always hoping that somewhere in the house, in a closet, perhaps, in a drawer, I might come upon some paper or some object that would throw light on the manner in which his life had been spent during the long silence of the preceding years - some clue which would explain the reasons for his flight or at least suggest a direction in which to look for him ... I had already gone through I don't know how many cupboards and wardrobes, and examines stacks of cartons filled with packets of letters and old family photographs, or with artificial flowers, feathers, aigrettes, and birds long since out of style. The faded scents, reminders of so much that was dead and gone, aroused in my own mind memories which for a whole day filled me with depression and brought the search to an end ... "

(Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain-Fournier, Chapter 13 'The Exercise Book', p188)

& perhaps one of the best statements of Joseph Cornell's poetics ... 

lotta bottle

o

So, Morandi ... a mixture, in fact. The negative, first: another example of poor gallery decision-making in hanging a series of works against black backgrounds which kill any sense of the works' colour. And, Morandi's later flower and shell period leaves me cold (there's one especially dreadful example which would not look out of place in a local Sunday painters' exhibition). However, the positive: a ravishing early still life that is (apparently) rarely exhibited; a superb pencil sketch; and the main room with a series of paintings that take your breath away. 

It's this room that really matters & that you need to return to again & again. If ever there was a painter who does not transfer to reproduction it's Morandi. The catalogue images are dull substitutes and I'd imagine a digital camera image would distort in the other direction - too bright. As it is these images conjure light from the dusty air that surrounds the bottles and other objects. Seeing the paintings arranged along the wall the set of variations becomes clear - think Goldberg or the Art of Fugue & fugacity. A. & I talk about the conditions in which he painted - the ascetic Chess Grandmaster level of concentration & intensity; the deliberate restriction of objects & means to open up such immense possibilities; the attention to light knowing how the tiniest of fluctuations would threaten the entire arrangement. As I'm looking I'm also thinking of Ben Nicholson, Sean Scully - use of negative space (the former), formal variation (the latter). Thinking, too, of the defiance (& courage?) to turn your back on the window and concentrate on a load of old bottles day after day. (Unlike models, though, they don't need to be paid, don't need breaks ... ). So much he excludes - but that's the bargain you strike. 

Nosing around the internet afterwards I happen upon a very good video interview with Wayne Thiebaud (http://vimeo.com/20806297). Thiebaud's modesty, flawless speech & precision of analysis are exemplary.