So long

Hi Di_Hard.

I think you have a point. Some kind of design flaw that precludes enjoyment of what is for what it is.

No, but I'll go and look.

Thank you.

Hi Di_Hard. Just read it a few times. Finally, away from the frantic noise of a local bar. Yes. It's that, isn't it?

We're caught somewhere in between the reality of being and the reality of a system of property, money and patronage - all the necessities and contingencies that blind us to who and where we are.

I was looking at the form of The Brook, too. I can see the limitations, though the technique is an art form in itself. Do you know Ginsberg’s Sunflower Sutra? It sort of achieves the same thing in a different way.

Yes, you're right, of course, about form. I love the Stonehenge analogy and I've learnt a new word. A friend introduced me to "Poetry" by William Wantling. Wantling makes a good point, but it's not the only way of seeing it. What could be more powerful than Shakespeare or the Greek tragedians? Thank goodness, also, for the movements that emerged in art during the last century or so that enabled us to see and present in ways other than the old Greek and Renaissance orthodoxies. To me, all are valid and satisfying when done well. All are valid ways of striving to say something. There's beauty in the aesthetic, no doubt - perhaps deriving from nature itself. There's also a kind of beauty in seeing behind the aesthetic to something more primal - before/behind Classical philosophy and form. Freed from those structures. Primitivism was a strong influence in surreal or modern art, probably for the same reason. Thanks for getting me thinking and opening up new arguments.

Wantling? :))))

Feel free to hijack.

That's a really interesting point or points. The surrealist movement actually began in literature among poets. André Bretón and others in Paris. The painters joined or found common cause with the movement. It grew out of Dadism (Dada), which was simply a rejection of orthodox structures and representation but had no proposal. The surrealist movement produced at least two manifestos proposing new ideas or values. One was to break with what they saw as bourgeois representation deriving from the classical and Renaissance periods, another was to pick up on Freud's ideas of the unconscious. In painting, this led to "automatic" painting where the brush or collage wasn't rationally guided on the canvas. Hence the abstraction of many paintings. There are plenty of surrealist books to go at. I think Joyce and Beckett probably fall into that category, but I'd say some of the Existentialist books of the 20th century are pretty close, too. Burroughs, probably. Rimbaud (ahead of the school) and Apollinaire for poetry, so Ginsberg to a point and Kerouac for his poetry, too. Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" is probably close to the idea of automatic painting. Check out Robert and Sonia Delaunay for what you were saying about colours. They called it "simultaneism".

It's amazing that you said that. After I sent the last comment, I was wondering whether to mention music. I know nothing much about classical (wrong term?) music in that respect. The Beats were heavily into improvised jazz / bop in the late 40s and early 50s. It must have been an interesting period. Lots of experimentation, but I expect it occurred within musical structures or perhaps looked for new relationships around known ones. You hear that a bit on Miles Davis' So What. Again, I'm not an expert.

I haven't, but it sounds interesting. A couple of people have tried to lead me down the path towards more modernist composers over the years. I don't even feel qualified to name names. Some interesting sounds, though. There were a couple of British composers, one of whom died in the last couple of years. Harrison Birtwistle.