Wounds of the Universe:Mire Lee @ Tate Modern.

"Behind all human actions there is something soft and vulnerable such as sincerity, hope, compassion, love and wanting to be loved" - Mire Lee

 

Nice sentiments, Mire Lee, and ones you'd think almost everyone could get behind but how they relate to her current Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation, Open Wound, I'm not sure. I went on Saturday (narrowly avoiding a serious number of pissed up pub crawling Santas on the South Bank - and a few horses to boot) and although aesthetically the art was quite pleasing I had no idea what it was all about or why it was there.

Apparently, the South Korean artist who works out of both Seoul and Amsterdam, is reflecting on the building's former use as a power station and reimagining the space as some kind of industrial womb that spews human desires out from some kind of sprawling mechanical system.

For which read a large slowly rotating industrial gizmo that drips some kind of oozing rusty water down into a pit below. Surrounded by what Lee calls 'skins':- fabric sculptures hung from the ceiling at various heights (but not so low you can touch them) by metal chains. These skins are, I read, 'birthed' from that industrial rotor and that rusty oozing water. Which I suppose is an impressive feat of production if pretty pointless.

The work, I read on, "considers the physical and emotional labour of people living in times of precarity and decline" and witnesses individual people getting caught up in larger systems. It is supposed to inspire in us feelings of awe and disgust as well as those of compassion, fear, and love. But I'm afraid it inspired in me something somewhere between curiosity and indifference. I started wondering if there'd be any nearby pubs not full of pissed up Santas where I could enjoy a quiet pint afterwards.

Her attempts to recreate the melancholy of an abandoned building site are honourable and interesting but if I'd wanted to experience melancholy of an abandoned building site I could have probably visited an abandoned building site. That does at least mean that Lee's art is actually quite traditional. She's seen a thing she likes and she's made a copy of it for people to look at.

Other than that though, there wasn't much for me (or, looking around, others). All the references to the South Korean poet Kim Eon Hee, how it "sometimes hurts to love" (no shit), and individuals being rendered autonomous and even unnecessary by technology weren't, for me, reflected in the not at all unpleasant art and served, simply, as yet more superfluous word salad.

The ideas are interesting, the art is interesting. The concept, however, is weak. The two don't really work together. I found a Santa free pub.

Theatre night:The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I've never read the 1922 short story about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and neither have I seen the 2008 film. In fact I didn't even know the tale had been written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and I thought the film was directed by Tim Burton which it isn't. It's David Fincher. So my visit, last night, to London's Ambassadors Theatre to see the play, in the form of a musical, was my first encounter with Mr Button and his curious case.

Of course, I knew the basic premise. A man is born old and then grows younger and younger, living his life backwards. A magical realist tale if ever there was one. But that's all I knew about it. I didn't know if it was funny or sad or both (spoiler alert - it's both) and I had no idea how it ended or what happened along the way. Turns out - quite a lot.

Jethro Compton and Darren Clark's musical reimagining of the story has been transferred to a Cornish fishing village (cue an impressive stage set of nets, rigging, rotting piers, and various others items of nautical paraphernalia and cue a couple of product placements - though one was for Proper Job IPA from the St Austell Brewery and they had a special offer on at the bar so it seemed rude not to) and moved forward a few decades from the original story.

Our Benjamin Button (played, brilliantly, by John Dagleish) is born, fully clothed - with glasses and a hat, in 1919 to parents who, to put it lightly, aren't exactly overjoyed by their new arrival. Benjamin's a resilient sort though and once he leaves the room he's basically been imprisoned in he goes to the pub, gets excited about space rockets, buys his first television, falls in love, gets married, has kids, runs away to America, fights in World War II, and learns a lot of lessons about life and love.

It could be twee and in some places it is. But at other times it is genuinely moving. I even felt a tear forming in the corner of my eye at one point but then I am, at heart, a complete and utter softy. The music, a kind of Cornish folk created with guitars, trumpet, organ, and tin whistle, as well as a drummer on a very impressive riser), is rousing in places and mournful, reflective, in others. It's so well sang that I could hardly believe so few people were making such a powerful sound.

While the story tackles themes of war, unrequited love, and even suicide it does also take in the very specific problems that may arise if you find yourself older than your own father and younger than your own children (even grandchildren) and it handles these questions very adroitly. Benjamin Button is a good man who only wants the best for those around him but because of his uniquely peculiar predicament it seems inevitable he will end up hurting those he loves the most. 

Will there be anything he can do about that? That will be his life's quest and as he grows younger and younger it seems he's beginning to find the answers. Just as those around him grow older and older. What is both interesting and touching is that, despite his own unique narrative, he experiences things in much the same way as the rest of us and snatched moments of joy - holding his child's hand, sitting on the beach with his wife, a joke with a much loved friend - prove the key to life's happiness. For a tale that is unsurprisingly tragic in places, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - at least in this musical iteration - is a hugely positive, if bittersweet in places, experience.

 

 

 

Fleapit revisited:Conclave.

The windows in the Sistine Chapel are high. When the bright Roman sun shines through them they bathe some of the fantastic Renaissance frescoes of Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio in glorious light. But they leave other sections obscured by darkness. Men, too, are composed of light and dark and even supposedly pious men, even extremely powerful clerics, are still men. Mortal, doubtful, conflicted, capable of both good and bad.

Edward Berger's new film Conclave (adapted from a 2016 novel by Robert Harris) is such an enjoyable watch because it leans into this side of humanity and doesn't shy away from it. The elderly pope has died and Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (an excellent, as ever, Ralph Fiennes) has been tasked with presiding over the conclave that will appoint the next pontiff.

Not an easy task. A global 'College' of Cardinals (so that's the collective term) arrive in the Vatican where they are sheltered, or 'sequestered', from the outside world and its goings on while they decide, via voting and politicking and - occasionally - the odd sharp practice, who will become the head of the global Catholic church, one of the most important jobs in the world presiding over a 'flock' of well over a billion people.

We're introduced to the runners and riders. Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) is an American liberal and very much the continuity candidate - Lawrence backs him. The Italian traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is Bellini's nemesis. His views on women and Islam are, to say the least, unreconstructed and Bellini sees it as his job to stand against Tedesco and try to prevent what he believes would be a hugely regressive step for the church. Even if Bellini is clearly being disingenuous about his own ambitions.

Is Lawrence himself also being disingenuous? He insists he has no interest in taking the papacy, instructs his followers to vote for others, expresses doubts about his faith, and we even see him vote for Bellini several times. Yet a nagging suspicion remains that Lawrence, the man very much at the heart of the drama, may not be showing his full hand. His real motives may also be shrouded in the cloistered darkness of the Vatican's gilded chambers.

Other contenders come in the form of Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), and rank outsider Cardinal Benitez (Carl Diehz). Mexican Benitez has been serving in Kabul (hardly a hotbed of Christianity) and was unknown to even the other cardinals before the conclave, the Nigerian Adeyemi has views on homosexuality that make him completely unpalatable to Bellini, and the supposedly moderate Canadian Tremblay is under suspicion regarding his own shaky relationship with the previous Bishop of Rome.

Lawrence, with the assistance of Monsignor O'Malley (Brian F O'Byrne), has to unravel all the different threads of these stories as he tries to do the right thing by himself, by his fellow cardinals, and by God. The direction of events is changed more than once following a series of very clever twists (some you could just about see coming, others completely wrongfooted me) and a vital intervention by Isabella Rossellini's Sister Agnes whose understated curtsy had the audience in the Peckhamplex, myself included, guffawing.

There were a couple of other funny moments but unlike Succession or The Death of Stalin (which tackle similar themes to Conclave - just without the ecclesiastical dimension) nobody could mistake this thriller for a comedy. In a world of scarlet cassocks, crucifixes, rosary beads, prayer, and, er, turtles there are a group of men who are as weighed down with ambition, hubris, and moral uncertainty as any other men and these men must choose, from their own number, a leader who will become 'infallible'. It is imperative they choose the right man. But will they choose the right man?

Fleapit revisited:Deliverance.

"Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you find anything" - Lewis Medlock.

"Squeal like a pig", "he got a real pretty mouth", Dueling Banjos. These are things you probably think of when you think of John Boorman's 1972 southern gothic movie Deliverance (shown recently on BBC2 and still, for a couple more days, available on the iPlayer) and, to be fair, they are some of the most dynamic moments of the film - but they are not the whole film.

What the whole film is is hard to tell. Is Boorman, a Brit, being rude about people in the Deep South? Is he making a point about the patronising attitudes of urban folk? Is it a story about how city dwellers underestimate nature (and those that live in it)? Is it parable about man's hubris? Or is it just a good old fashioned thriller and I'm reading way too much into it?

Four Atlanta businessmen are heading to the Cahulawassee river (actually the Chattooga, a tributry of the Tugaloo which is, itself, a tributary of the Savannah) in northern Georgia with a plan to canoe down it before it is damned for eternity. It's very beautiful out there but, inevitably, it's very dangerous too.

Lewis (Burt Reynolds) doesn't worry about the danger. He's a risk taker, an alpha male who smokes cigars, spears fish, and sets himself up as the leader of the group. Ed (Jon Voight) has joined Lewis on adventures before - even if he doubts his own wisdom in doing so - but is more circumspect when it comes to making major decisions. He's a pipe smoker. Both actually and metaphorically.

Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox) are novices. Law abiding Drew likes nothing more than to play his guitar and Bobby, whom Lewis calls Chubby - he's a little more rotund than the others, is really not the outdoors type in any way. It seems inevitable that he will either regret his decision to join the others on the trip or he'll end up the hero of the piece.

Maybe both. On arriving at a small town near the river, the foursome (particularly Lewis) manage to insult the locals. Locals who are already poverty stricken and highly suspicious of city slickers. When the Dueling  Banjos scene arrives, much earlier than I remembered, Lonnie the banjo boy (Billy Reddon) smiles with glee as he duets with Drew but refuses to shake his hand or even acknowledge him afterwards.

That's the least of their worries. A trip that starts off looking idyllic (and even fun if that's your bag) soon becomes far more treacherous and I don't just mean the white water rapids and the parasitical mosquitoes. Mountain men with guns ('Mountain Man' is played by Bill McKinney while Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward gets to play a character called 'Toothless Man'), being tied to trees, and those uncomfortable, unforgettable, scenes of a man squealing like a pig as he's anally raped.

This incident, understandably, changes the whole tone of the trip but it also drastically alters the dynamic of the group as one man's authority is questioned and others rise. It's not, however, the end of their problems. Further perils await. Some natural and some of their own making. Mostly a combination of the two. On more than one occasion you find yourself wondering if the Cahulawassee will become their watery grave.

It's a good yarn, exciting and tense in places with some fantastic hillbilly dancing on show, that reminded me a little of Ted Kotcheff's Wake In Fright which came out one year earlier. There are some vertigo inducing scenes and some that are unpleasant for very different reasons but, ultimately, I didn't find myself caring for, rooting for, or empathising with any of the characters. Maybe that's baked in with the southern gothic genre but I don't see why it should be. No doubt about it, Deliverance has earned its place in the pantheon but the caveat is it could, and should, have been even better. You better pray good. 

UXD 2:The Next Five Years.

Five years ago, I wrote a blog about the then 31 year history of the Unemployed Xmas Dinner. I don't want to write one every year (I'd rather concentrate on enjoying the event) but I did think it'd be nice to now, a full lustrum later, write a little follow up. As I explained in 2019's blog it's just a case of holding on to some memories at a time when we reach an age when our memories, and bodies, start failing us.

In the 2019 blog I wrote about two events that were specific to that year. Firstly that Miriam and Ian were expecting a child and that that child might be born during the UXD. Arlow didn't quite manage that but he was born the very next day when Damon and I were enjoying a few, quite a few, recovery pints in The Three Guineas. A pub in Reading train station. Classy.

I also wrote about how 2019's UXD would be the first time we'd held the event since we lost Bugsy so it's really nice to be able to report that this year his son Dylan will be making his first appearance. Something I'm pretty certain Bugsy would have been proud and happy about. In the intervening years there have, sadly, been more losses. Particularly of parents (including one just this week). A silly little Xmas dinner isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things but, for me, getting together with friends and family is - and this event seems to be a pretty good way of doing just that.

In 2019 we went to House of Flavours in Reading and a few of us ended up in The Blagrave Arms, to the best of my knowledge Reading's only gay pub. It was a fun night and though Adam dropped the Man of the Year award he did raise a toast for Bugsy. Which was quite moving. I was set next to Damon and he put his hand on my back because he knew it was an emotional moment for me as it was for lots of us. Not least Carole.

Then in 2020, we missed a year. For the first time since we started this nonsense. It won't be a surprise that Covid was the culprit. We simply couldn't do it. I harboured an idea of having a very late UXD in the spring or summer of 2021 but that never really took off. We were back, some of us - everyone had to make their own decisions, for Xmas 2021 with an event in Brixton.

Drinks in The Effra Tavern, Mexican food in DF Tacos, more drinks in The Dogstar and then me (and, thankfully, just me) getting 'coronavirus' (as we used to call it) the next day and spending the rest of the festive season in splendid isolation. I rather enjoyed it though pleased to report that this year I'll be back in action. In fact, I'm not only having an unemployed Xmas dinner, I'm having an EMPLOYED Xmas dinner. At least two of them. I'm really enjoying my work and I'm really liking all my new colleagues. There's even a couple of familiar faces amongst them!

2022 we were back in Reading at Bill's (pre-meal drinks in The Fisherman's Cottage) and we voted against joining the young and cool set in The Purple Turtle aftewards (too packed, yes - we're old) and instead went to The Hope Tap (a Wetherspoons house on Friar Street) where we saw a man sat on his own, knocking back a pint, and repeatedly watching Mike Read's UKIP Calypso on his phone. Each to his own.

Last year we had the meal in the pub (the idea being it would be cheaper, an idea presumably that someone who has not looked at a pub menu recently came up with). The Bay and Bracket in Victoria (a few of us had drinks in The Greencoat Boy beforehand and a few of us in The Albert after - apparently some continued on in Brixton but I'd gone home by then) which was very friendly and we got Santa hats and all that. I wasn't super impressed with my meal (and Mesude ate my starter, presuming that in Turkish tradition it was 'for the table') but the UXD isn't really about fine dining, it's about getting together. 

This blog is as much about getting some photos of the last five years out there as it is about the meals but I'm looking forward to tomorrow and seeing the, hopefully sixteen - maybe more and maybe less, people that are coming along to The Boundary pub and then Las Iguanas after. Rob (who, as tradition dictates, has booked him and myself into The Premier Inn) has told me he's meeting with our old friend Sean Provis in The Purple Turtle beforehand and that will take me right back to the early days, 1989, of the UXD. Merry Xmas everybody, here's some more photos and see a fair few of you tomorrow for the 35th (THIRTY-FIFTH) UXD!