From the very beginning Don Lamb, one of  ‘a clerisy of  bachelor dons’ seems to feel that the ‘span of time’ that is the summation of his life-story is both interpreted and sanctified by his being seen as the ‘embodiment of art history in Cambridge’: ‘The tautology of his name has always pleased him. Donnish, … More ‘The tautology of his name has always pleased him. Donnish, serious, dignified – that is how his life has been. … Sometimes the span of time seems like nothing. … His thoughts are the mirror image of Cambridge’s unchanging vistas, his mind sustained by the rituals of academic life’. This blog reflects on the 2022 novel by James Cahill, ‘Tiepolo Blue’ (London, Sceptre).

LIVERPOOL 2022 VISIT summary at end: ‘To be or not to be’! Let’s reflect on why some of us are not satisfied by art exhibitions that don’t convince us that they have one overarching, clear and coherent reason that justifies them making a show of themselves. This is a blog reflecting on how and why … More LIVERPOOL 2022 VISIT summary at end: ‘To be or not to be’! This is a blog reflecting on how and why I was somewhat disappointed in two art exhibitions currently showing in Liverpool both containing some enormously significant individual works of art. These are ‘The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics’, a National Portrait Gallery exhibition at the Walker Gallery & ‘Radical Landscapes: Art, identity and Activism’ at Tate Liverpool.

‘Who taught them to hide? They never wondered. They were only curious fingers in the dark. You like it? Somadina said, not in a voice that he would use with the girls and women years away, he’d not yet learned to treat pleasing someone else as an act that affirmed his power over them’.[1] Reflecting … More ‘Who taught them to hide? They never wondered. They were only curious fingers in the dark. You like it? Somadina said, not in a voice that he would use with the girls and women years away, he’d not yet learned to treat pleasing someone else as an act that affirmed his power over them’. Reflecting on the short story by  Arinze Ifeakandu, ‘Happy Is a Doing Word’, published in the ‘Kenyon Review’ May/June 2022 Vol. 44, No. 3, 45 – 66.

Sophus Helle, in a new translation of the ancient poem Gilgamesh, speaks of the controversy surrounding descriptions of the relationship between its hero Gilgamesh and Enkidu since Thorkild Jacobsen in 1930 (using a word with at the time a relatively brief history of forty years) first called it a ‘homosexual’ one. Helle stresses instead that … More Sophus Helle, in a new translation of the ancient poem ‘Gilgamesh’, speaks of the controversy surrounding descriptions of the relationship between its hero Gilgamesh and Enkidu since Thorkild Jacobsen in 1930 (using a word with at the time a relatively brief history of forty years) first called it a ‘homosexual’ one. Helle stresses that the relationship’s participants ‘do not explicate the nature of their feelings for one another. …, it is as if they want to leave their bond undefined by words, shapeless in all its intensity’. A reflection on Sophus Helle’s 2021 book, ‘A New Translation of the Ancient Epic, GILGAMESH, with Essays on the Poem, its Past and its Passion’.

Intent on joining the Merchant Navy with a man called Reggie that he has just learned that he loves, Dick visits a vessel where he meets a group of already serving sailors: ‘ “I love Dick,” one screamed. And they all screamed with laughter. / …/ Dick thought of the ugly, middle-aged powdered faces. He … More ‘ “I love Dick,” one screamed. And they all screamed with laughter. / …/ Dick thought of the ugly, middle-aged powdered faces. He had never seen homosexuals like them before. He had never thought of his relationship with Reggie as being homosexual, he hadn’t labelled or questioned it. It wasn’t like this. They would never be like these men’. A reflection on Gillian Freeman’s book (1961) and film (1964) The Leather Boys.

Towards the very end of this novel a man in the Highlands above Glasgow gives the bedraggled, abused and self-alienated young Mungo Hamilton a lift in his Defender Land Rover as he treads back towards Glasgow. The man talks of one of his own four sons: ‘“Gregor’s a good lad. … Always helps his mother … More Towards the very end of this novel a man in the Highlands above Glasgow gives the bedraggled, abused and self-alienated young Mungo Hamilton a lift in his Defender Land Rover as he treads back towards Glasgow. The man talks of one of his own four sons: ‘“Gregor’s a good lad. … Always helps his mother around the house without being asked, but he’s a wee bit …” The man paused as though he couldn’t find the correct word. “Artistic. T’cbut. Do ye know what I mean by that?”’ This is my blog review of Douglas Stuart (2022) Young Mungo London, Picador.

Briony Fer, in an essay in the catalogue of the latest retrospective of Louise Bourgeois’ paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, says Bourgeois abandoned painting when painting itself abandoned the representation of an external world and its phenomena in the view that ‘the most ambitious art had to be abstract and … More Briony Fer says Louise Bourgeois abandoned painting when painting itself abandoned the representation of an external world and its phenomena in the view that ‘the most ambitious art had to be abstract and obey certain pictorial protocols – an opinion that, with all such doxa, was fundamentally exclusionary and to which she never adhered’. This is a blog on Clare Davies & Briony Fer (2022) ‘Louise Bourgeois: Paintings’

LIVERPOOL 2022 VISIT no. 0: This is a blog anticipating a visit to exhibitions in Liverpool and a series of blogs on them. This one anticipates that part of it visiting the ‘RADICAL LANDSCAPES’ exhibition at Tate Liverpool on June 16th 2.00 p.m. This is a show promising art that has thought anew about a … More LIVERPOOL 2022 VISIT no. 0: This is a blog anticipating a visit to exhibitions in Liverpool on June 14 – 17th and a series of blogs on them. What does it mean to read about such an exhibition before the event? The blog tests my feelings and thoughts on that issue by reading the essays and examining illustration in Darren Pih & Laura Bruni (Eds.) (2022) ‘Radical Landscapes: Art, Identity and Activism’.

Joe Gunner, the hero of The Whale Tattoo, recounting sexual encounters with Jim Fysh, a long-term boyfriend who has entered a heterosexual marriage, says: ‘…, I listen to him talk about how right it feels and I tell him, “these things you want can’t ever be right.”’ This is a blog on a new kind … More ‘…, I listen to him talk about how right it feels and I tell him, “these things you want can’t ever be right.”’ This is a blog on a new kind of bald and ‘dirty’ fiction about working-class male queer relationships (where even the ‘clouds hang like dirty curtains’) that considers the rights and wrongs of achieving ‘the in-between place … Where there’s no noise and nothing matters’. This is a blog on Jon Ransom (2022) ‘The Whale Tattoo’

Recommending Paul Deslandes (2022) The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain: From the First Photographs to David Beckham Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press. I love this book. But I decided that I didn’t want to discuss its ideas because the whole concept of pursuing (as is the way of the academic) one … More Recommending Paul Deslandes (2022) ‘The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain: From the First Photographs to David Beckham’.

This blog reflects on Terence Davies’ Benediction based on seeing it for the first time on 20th May 2022 at the Roxy Screen, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle.  This is a film about the wastage of young male lives but not solely in war. The latter is early predicated in the loss of Siegfried’s brother Hamo (Thom … More This blog reflects on Terence Davies’ ‘Benediction’ based on seeing it for the first time on 20th May 2022 at the Roxy Screen, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle. 

Writing of his confrontation with literary periodicals and ‘avant-garde novels’ in the autobiographical account of his youth entitled Emblems of Conduct, Donald Windham says that whereas commonly people focus on ‘morality based on security’, ‘security seemed to me the limiting of possibility, and a morality based on security to be immoral’.[1]  This blog considers how … More Donald Windham says that whereas commonly people focus on ‘morality based on security’, ‘security seemed to me the limiting of possibility, and a morality based on security to be immoral’. This blog considers how the work of Windham creates a stance on ethics and morality that embraces the world of endless queer potential and the risk it involves. It reflects on him by focusing on ‘The Warm Country’ (1960) set of short stories, ‘The Hero Continues’ (1960) and ‘Two People’ (1965).