Yesterday or was the day before, marked the commencement of spring, a time for rebirth. There was local media generated argument about when winter becomes spring, more so because January was one of the warmest on record in the UK. For two mornings I looked outside to find everything covered by an inch or so of snow. I suspect the earth is experiencing climate changes because of what is happening to the sun and among other terrestrial bodies, and because of our excessive exploitation of energy resources. It is worrying that the control of energy resources becomes yet another cause for global conflagration alongside ideological politics, race and religion, nuclear, chemical and biological accident.
New Years Day and Spring Day are concept days for making commitments to doing something more about ones own behaviour and towards other beings and our physical environment. Spring is usually a more effective time for personal renewal especially for those who become depressed and constrained by winter.
For some, including the creatives, and even more so for older ones like me, every day that that you wake from sleep, and discover that you are not having to directly try and talk your way into heaven or away from hell, is a bonus, and must not be wasted. The downside is that for every rebirth part of one has to die, and this is often a sad, painful, but an essential part of the process of life. "It is not being knocked down", my granny would say, if I had ever known a granny, "But how quickly you learn to pick yourself up and get on with it."
I missed a MySpace Blog day recently, not even writing notes about the factual events of the day... I had watched a TV documentary about an addiction where the well known celebrity fronting the camera had become exposed and disturbed by the investigation and for some reason agreed to parts of what happened being shown. It was good reality TV but I thought the individual had been unwise to go ahead and could come to regret in later years when she understood more the nature of the epiphany experienced. Fortunately she did not rush to put into practice the sensible and accurate professional advice offered without first weighing up all the consequences.
The programme led to lots of internal debates about the nature of being a performance artist, about my belief that to be a contemporary artist, you should be willing to expose the process of the work creation, which usually also means exposing parts you may not wish others to see, now and in the future. I decided to write about the experience of watching the programme in the context of tackling my problem of getting fat and unhealthy, and then confused myself over differences between addictions and disorders which are still being worked out.
I had also intended to do a piece about my contemporary cultural experience, viewing an episode of Lost each day, and then writing something after a block of 8, only to discover that I had watched four out of sequence. I have taken to Lost because it is a clever but simple programme about being given the opportunity to gain redemption before moving on to heaven or hell. The programme has featured one substance addict which posed the question of how is it possible to judge the actions of someone who has by definition no control over what they do. If you cannot stop yourself even when you are motivated to do so and when you know what you are doing is self destructive and harmful to others, then how can you be judged? Society may, and often has to judge, and to act to maintain order, and a sense of justice for any victims, but I reckon making an absolute black and white, heaven or hell type decision is more difficult.
So I am still working on both pieces and decided to continue to piggy back the work of others which has so far involved alternating between the films of Bergman and Almodovar, other cinema, recent theatre and other cultural events. Today the decision is for something self indulgent, wicked, irreverential and down right silly. You have guessed it an Almodovar film, "What have I done to deserve this? A plea which most of us make at least once in our lives, if not as frequently as once a day?
I found the film funny with delicious moments such as early on when a cleaner uses a mop to imitate an Akendo class, or when she admits to a policeman, she has screwed, that she killed her husband with a chop, he advises her not to tell anyone else. Chop Chop, get it?
The film is a joyous rant against or in favour of the imprisonment of the working class in flat block land, where goodness gracious me, there is a tart next door enjoying herself and making lots of dosh, the youngest school age son is sleeping with an older man, the eldest son is selling drugs, a relative eats fairy cakes as a main course and regards scraps of a chicken as desert while the murdered husband was a fascist nut. Mother, well. she is a works hard as a manual labourer, indulges in indiscriminate sex, enjoys prescription drugs and gets what she wishes for with help from the child of a neighbour who has the power of mind over matter, and moreover the woman appears to have none of the angst of the thinking and sophisticated classes.
I ended the viewing asking what I had done to deserve spending time viewing films about people enjoying themselves in ways which did not involve viewing films. I still cannot make up my mind about Almodovar. Is he being critical of others? Is he trying to change Spanish society in a particular direction? Or is he just having lots of fun and making lots and lots of dosh asking himself over and over again what has he done to deserve this?
No comments:
Post a Comment