Legacy

R.P.Connolly Performance

Title: Legacy
At: Munch Museum, Oslo, late night opening event curated by Christian Tony Norum

Thursday 27.10.16 18.00 – 21.00

Concept: a commentary on the reification of Munch as national icon and brand. 

Synopsis: A selection of Munch merchandise from the museum shop was pinned to the inside of a double-breasted vintage jacket. While wearing a mask cast* from the bust of Edvard Munch on Munch’s grave together with a complete set of Edwardian clothing, an attempt to sell the merchandise was made by displaying it to individual members of the audience in the manner of an illegal street trader; by opening the jacket and spreading it to reveal the merchandise while extolling the attractiveness of the articles and their prices.

*by Oslo artist Munch Malo

Kunstkritikk article, 1.11.16

Craft Beer Explained

From July's Scandinavian Traveler, inflight magazine of the Scandinavian Airline System ('traveler'? - yes, SAS recently went over to US English. A surprising move in view of the fact that most of the English-speaking world uses British spelling), in an article about food in Boston:

"'We consider ourselves a craft beer bar, so we take a lot of pride in serving unique beers...' Hays says as she offers a couple of drinks to try with the oysters.

One is Lightning Fields, a sour ale, that is brewed with the citrus fruit Buddha's Hand. It has a lovely (sic) lemony-zesty flavor...

'A similar effect to squeezing a few drops of lemon on oysters,' Hays explains."

Of course - and what could go better with fish and chips than a foaming pint of nut brown vinegar?

I'd prefer to reserve the right to limit my consumption of sharp-flavoured appetisers to a few drops squeezed onto something I'm about to eat, rather than them being listed on the drinks menu and served in pint measures, but as I've pointed out before https://robocono.blogspot.no/2015/09/booze-ocide.html, it's becoming increasingly unusual to find any beer on offer that doesn't taste like bitter- or sour-tasting fruits or condiments.

A bulldog chewing a wasp/enjoying a craft beer

O Mores

One fine summer's evening in the early 70s I got the train into town to go for an evening's drinking. On my way from Exchange I noticed repetitious graffiti chalked on the walls along my route - 
"TARBUCK IS RUBBISH", "TARBUCK MUST GO". 

It was only a short distance, along narrow alleys that were part of a still existing medieval street plan, now opened up, with car parks on the levelled rubble of wartime bombsites; but the messages were repeated many times.

When I arrived at my destination, a long, narrow, cavern-like pub in one of the curiously-named Heys* (Tempest, in this case) called The Liverpool Tram, it was dark inside, in sharp contrast to the bright early evening sunshine outside, and my light-adapted eyes had difficulty making things out, but I saw there was only one other person there apart from my friend Keith: a shadowy figure hunched over the bar seated on a bar stool at the far end of the room, some thirty feet away.

"Did you see someone's chalked graffiti everywhere about Tarbuck; 'TARBUCK IS RUBBISH', 'TARBUCK MUST GO'?", I said. Before Keith could reply, the man at the other end of the bar burst out: "Tarbuck! Don't talk to me about that bastard!".

On another such occasion in the same part of town, this time in the Yates's Wine Lodge on Moorfields, which would become the subject of Richard Wilson's kinetic architectural installation 'Turning the Place Over' some thirty five years later, I witnessed something I still have trouble believing myself. This Yates's was in a modern building in the brutalist style with, as is the way with Yates's decor, much tile work, with the bar floor, walls, and the face of the bar itself covered with heavy-duty matt finish slab tiling, with a shallow gutter running the length of the bar, presumably to facilitate swilling the place out after closing time.

While my friends were in the lavatory, I saw a man standing at the bar get his cock out and piss against the bar, at the same time as he was thirstily tilting his pint to drain it - 'in one end and out the other'. 

No-one appeared to notice apart from me, or if they did, the sight was unremarkable enough to attract no response. The man left shortly afterwards.
When they returned, my friends at first refused to believe what I told them, and suggested the urine that I pointed out in the gutter was spilt beer.


* A hey is a piece of land enclosed by hedges, cf hague, haag (Dutch), hage (Norwegian).

Inverted Pyramid of Piffle (US style)

Further to  my post on transatlantic pleonasm - posted last October, and still requiring regular updating - probably the most clearly documented record (7" in this case, a No.5 in the UK ) of this seemingly insatiable need for linguistic encrustment comes from the category of transatlantic popular culture known as Easy Listening, subsection Knitting Pattern Model Style: Andy Williams' performance of Can't Take My Eyes Off You. 

Faithful to the song's actual title in 1967, but by 2002, this .(Interestingly, the poster of the 1967 version on YouTube has titled it with Andy's 2002 version of the lyric.)

Horror

We have in recent years seen a return of Victorian horror vacui. Just as the Victorians couldn't leave a stone unturned in their architecture, a surface or margin free from arabesques, frisks of foliage, geometric Greek friezes, acanthus acroteria, Gothic finials and crockets; a fabric unladen with dense patterns, florid swirls, pinstripes, herringbones and dripping with frills, ribbons, borders and ribbons; wallpaper... I could go on, but you get the idea.

Now though, instead of artistic or decorative ornament, we have brands, logos, tagging and graffiti. 

The difference is, the Victorian decoration works like small trills of music or contrapuntal variation on the main theme, while what we have now is like truck reversing warnings or someone shouting their name through a megaphone.

I noticed brands appearing on the back of coats recently, usually on the right shoulder, and I was trying to remember what that reminded me of. Although the ? hovered just out of reach, I knew it had worrying or ominous associations. 

The ? was in pictures of Jewish ghettos in Nazi Europe, with people with a Star of David in just the same place on the backs of their coats. 

The Nazis liked to brand people as well as clothing, with tattoos - their own, the SS, with their blood group, and concentration camp inmates with a number. Then there's the ever-growing popularity of skulls as decorative devices. Say 'totenkopf' instead of skull and that's another fashion trend channelling the Nazis. 

I suppose it's subconscious rather than deliberate, and to do with the never-ending fascination with the Nazis and their evil glamour. We seem to be exposed to more about them and the Second World War as time goes on, rather than less.

It's as I quoted Kurt Vonnegut in  http://robocono.blogspot.com/2015/10/like-im-sure-rest-of-you-im-baffled-by.html 

"Our war will live forever in showbiz as other wars would not, because of the uniforms of the Nazis" (Timequake, Jonathan Cape, London 1997, p.23).