Category: Education, Art & Writing

Visiting the Discovering Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection in Pollok County Park, Glasgow on its opening day on 24th May 2024 at 12 noon.

May 27, 2024

Visiting the Discovering Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection in Pollok County Park, Glasgow on its opening day on 24th May 2024 at 12 noon. This blog supplements one done preparatory to my visit and before I had access to the catalogue and hence a list of te exhibited works. You can read that blog … More Visiting the Discovering Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection in Pollok County Park, Glasgow on its opening day on 24th May 2024 at 12 noon.

There is no way that you can read through a memoir like ‘Slum Boy: A Portrait’ by following one unbending line of narrative that you expect to unfold in one direction only, for lives full of deep ruptures in personal experience, and maybe all lives, don’t work that way. Reading Juano Diaz (2024) ‘Slum Boy: A Portrait London’.

May 26, 2024

There is no way that you can read through a memoir like Slum Boy: A Portrait by following one unbending line of narrative that you expect to unfold in one direction only, for lives full of deep ruptures in personal experience, and maybe all lives, don’t work that way. How do we reconcile that with … More There is no way that you can read through a memoir like ‘Slum Boy: A Portrait’ by following one unbending line of narrative that you expect to unfold in one direction only, for lives full of deep ruptures in personal experience, and maybe all lives, don’t work that way. Reading Juano Diaz (2024) ‘Slum Boy: A Portrait London’.

Erich Fromm distinguishes a healthy culture of ‘being’ from the diseased cultures created by capitalist ideology, obsessed by individuals dreaming of ‘having it all’. However you define ‘all’ in that phrase, it is the acme of a diseased culture ruled by individual greed alone.

May 25, 2024

Erich Fromm distinguishes a healthy culture of ‘being’ from the diseased cultures obsessed by ‘having it all’. However you define ‘all’ in that phrase, it is the acme of a diseased culture ruled by individual greed alone. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was an iconoclast of amd from many traditions in which he was nevertheless embedded, … More Erich Fromm distinguishes a healthy culture of ‘being’ from the diseased cultures created by capitalist ideology, obsessed by individuals dreaming of ‘having it all’. However you define ‘all’ in that phrase, it is the acme of a diseased culture ruled by individual greed alone.

Poetry is a dialogue with everything. The sooner we do that, the better. Communing with John Burnside’s latest volume, ‘Ruin Blossom’.

May 24, 2024

Who would you like to talk to soon? I wrote and put online the blog below on he 24th May. John Burnside died on the 29th May, announced by his publisher on 31st May. Never to see the hero again and talk to him, even if at a book signing. I mourn for him, his … More Poetry is a dialogue with everything. The sooner we do that, the better. Communing with John Burnside’s latest volume, ‘Ruin Blossom’.

A play, and a pint and a play about a deaf young queer man loving for the first love he neglected to find before at Òran Mór, Glasgow.

May 23, 2024

Dungeons, Dragons, and the Quest for D*** It’s  a wet day in Glasgow today. It was wet when we travelled up yesterday and stopped at Gretna Green on the way. Unfortunately, it was a stop for a pub lunch and my husband hid behind his menu. But here we are in a flat a few … More A play, and a pint and a play about a deaf young queer man loving for the first love he neglected to find before at Òran Mór, Glasgow.

An Atlantic of a difference in ‘How I Practise as a person following a religion’ or ‘Practicing religion’. And then my answer!

May 22, 2024

“Strictly speaking,” said Mr. Strict DyasDust, who spent his life correcting others, “this question is nonsense because it uses the word ‘practice’ as a verb whereas it is only a noun. Ask me, if I practise religion, or do not ask at all”. In the UK there probably are people who still care about the … More An Atlantic of a difference in ‘How I Practise as a person following a religion’ or ‘Practicing religion’. And then my answer!

Reflection on sex/gender in painting before seeing ‘Discovering Degas’ at the Glasgow Burrell Collection.

May 21, 2024

Degas in 1859, as a young artist scoping and sketching the European art on a Continental grand tour, said that: ‘Nobody ever rendered the charm and finesse of woman, the elegance and chivalry of man, nor the distinction between the two, like Van Dyck’.[1] He also, in 1891, according to Daniel Halévy, said in response … More Reflection on sex/gender in painting before seeing ‘Discovering Degas’ at the Glasgow Burrell Collection.

When I am cold / the world feels  old/ My heart’s in hiding!/ The train buffered at a siding.

May 20, 2024

How do you feel about cold weather? Snow, snow, snowis how the snow speaks,Is how the page reads. Snow, from Simon Armitage’s (2020) Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems  London, Faber & Faber. It must be different reading Simon Armitage’s poem Snow outside on Pule Hill near Mardsen in Yorkshire, inscribed in stone, than in a book. And maybe even … More When I am cold / the world feels  old/ My heart’s in hiding!/ The train buffered at a siding.

X’d. From communication to controlling others in one social media application, once called Twitter. It did not need to be thus.

May 19, 2024

Of course, having been born in 1954 and schooled in the sixties, I remember that time. My first computer was an early Amstrad bought in the 1990s. Even in the 1970s, I was subnitting essays at UCL in my own handwriting and using real books in real libraries. We now call that using hard copies. That fact … More X’d. From communication to controlling others in one social media application, once called Twitter. It did not need to be thus.

James and John, due to be executed for ‘sodomy’, were visited by Charles Dickens. This is a blog on Chris Bryant (2024) ‘James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder’.

May 18, 2024

James and John, due to be executed for ‘sodomy’, were visited by Charles Dickens and the editor of the Monthly Magazine for which he wrote under the pen-name, Boz. He wrote in his coverage of that visit of the look of men who ‘had nothing to expect from the mercy of the crown’ and who … More James and John, due to be executed for ‘sodomy’, were visited by Charles Dickens. This is a blog on Chris Bryant (2024) ‘James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder’.

Consider legacy: the case of Jack Hilton’s ‘Caliban Shrieks’ (1935)

May 17, 2024

‘CALIBAN IS A MAN YOU SHOULD KNOW WELL. … He holds opinions about his rights; such foolishness he should overcome’.[1] This is a blog on Jack Hilton (with introductions  by Andrew McMillan & Jack Chadwick) [2024, but first published in 1935) Caliban Shrieks, Vintage Classics. Did Jack Hilton leave a legacy? If so, how should … More Consider legacy: the case of Jack Hilton’s ‘Caliban Shrieks’ (1935)

You could never know what doing a job is like by doing it for one day. Reflecting on ‘The Last Cage Down’, an exhibition of the survival of miner’s memories with the help Of Andrew McMillan’s ‘Pity’.

May 16, 2024

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day? You could never know what doing a job is like by doing it for one day. Reflecting on ‘The Last Cage Down’, an exhibition of the survival of miner’s memories with the help Of Andrew McMillan’s Pity. This blog comes from many other prompts … More You could never know what doing a job is like by doing it for one day. Reflecting on ‘The Last Cage Down’, an exhibition of the survival of miner’s memories with the help Of Andrew McMillan’s ‘Pity’.