Los Olividados

This still from Bunuel's mastercake Los Olividados is from one of the central scenes in the film. The two characters on either side of the youth in the middle will pay dearly for the murder that is about to be committed.

Set in the slums of Mexico City 1950, we encounter evil as poverty; evil as inescapable: there are no winners here, except Satan who loves to see tears shed unendingly. The lesson is that when poverty is allowed, love is negated and replaced by desperation for diversion from the terrible ennui that loveless-ness brings.

As ever with Bunuel(90% of all his films?), the narrative never flags; here it drives along as scene after scene is full of riches for the eye, the heart and the mind; bitter riches, for there is no comfort here but for the lucidity of understanding in a small, at-a-safe-distance way the ravages of poverty, the pervasion of evil. Let's not allow evil to dominate the lives of others and let it not touch our lives through crime...but as ever this sentiment is one generally dwelled on as diversion...

SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, DO SOMETHING...I'M TOO BUSY WATCHING FILMS...

See Los Olividados at least, it raises questions that seek answers because the powerful images feel indelible and the exploration of the characters' motives rings true.

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Despairation

I must answer to the question: Squorch, was that really you?

Yes. I was at the Audley in Mayfair on the first Sunday of February in despair at the way my career is not going. It all came home because of the puppets I saw at the BlindSummit show the week before; and those of you who read the blog regularly have possibly sensed an off-keyness about things. My career has STALLED!!! I blame it on my 'master' K1 who hasn't given me the freedom or the parts to show my thang.

A film he did some sound-design for was being mixed on Tuesday in Soho and yet he still didn't take me there to be seen. I could've made contacts, but no, he's ashamed of me. He's made 14 short films. Was I ever invited to be in them? NO Sirreebob. We did a few performances when we were kids but nothing since then. Zip. Is it any wonder I've turned to the boozio, the liquid for bozos? I am a bozo. Here are some more pics from the BlindSummit night with some commentary.

Excitement and anticipation before the show

Various shots of me in the audience and in the pocket I often inhabit.

Hold up! I should be on the stage. I was born to perform.

Typical! Asda supermarket in Clapham on a Saturday night. People are grooving and moving around to the beats and sounds and as ever I have no friends and no parties to be gracing-all because of you know who. So instead I wander round Asda. At least it's something I guess.

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Untitled

1)The smell in tube-trains diffuses amorous feelings:anti-amorous feelings for sum.

2)Fish, fish, fish.

3)Symbolic circle.

4)This is a tale from ancient times.

I counted 7 baldheads.#The light was good...

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This is not a pipe because I can not smoke it, says Magritte.

I say: put that in a pipe and smoke it and see that it burns; but the concept remains, as- in an age where there are as many bricks as there are pictures- do reproductions of the image. Send it to Mars where they now believe there is water.

Replication is one of the undercurrents of this blog. On a Google search for:

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I found references to 9/11. In Loose Change, JFK etc. what we think we saw happen did not happen as we saw or thought. What is appearance and what is reality ? It is the theme that obsesses you humans.

I believe the experience of babyhood, where things appear and disappear with no apparent meaning at first, (and then with myriad layers of altering meaning as we grow up), is one reason.
Why does my mum go away? Why is there light and then darkness?

We reach an age where explanations generally suffice but we do not know everything and that's cool. But we all like to think that we could grasp most things at some level. Even to that which is beyond us we can attach 'reason' . However, one thing we humans and puppets like to think is... that we can see behind anomalies in the behaviour and actions of others. It is natural.

In the jungle, survival depends on judgement. When faced with the cunning of the human you better know the difference between someone who wants to smoke a pipe of peace and someone who wants to paint a pipe and:

say it's not a pipe

make you think they're extremely clever

make you feel flattered that you can share in their impressive paradox

make you buy the painting

and then visit your tree house while you're asleep and take it off you

Ceci n'est pas une pipe: you can't con me. I KNOW the difference. I know a con from a dotcom. I'm clever...and how often do people get hoodwinked?

Probably as often as they pride themselves on how often they KNOW what's going on, behind the scenes, behind their behinds.


What is going on anyway?

The Cone Nebula: over a short period of lightyears new stars are born within

Time waiteth for no puppet and the vastness of the Universe and its timescale compared to that of the earth is a boggler. I have been away for a while recovering from the impact of what I saw at, and the feelings I experienced after the BlindSummit event. I shall post some pictures of my drunken despair futurely.

For now I invite you to upload a piece of music by DJ Food called Raiding the 20th Century which is 50 minutes long. It is worth a listen as the breaks and some of the mixes and meldings of different tracks are squorksome. It's a bit long and the third or fourth listen, exciting passages aside, can be a little boring. But first and second listen 3 to 4 stars.

Here is the link: DJ Food. It's from ubu. It's free and there are no copy problems as I understand.

http://www.ubu.com

Blind Summit's LowLife-The Blue "Men" Sketch

On Saturday I went to see LowLife performed by humans and fellow puppets of Blind Summit. I was very envious. I should have been on stage with them but I am a bit of a bargain basement puppet. Like me, above, there are a multiplicity of these chaps, too, as you can see. But all the other puppets in the show were unique and handmade.

However, these blue 'men' were probably the most significant part of the show philosophicallyand in terms of entertainment- if not puppetry- the best. Each of the characters is a blue man and the same character, yet different, acting different roles but being the same personality, give or take a few transformations. It raises the question of identity and replication as in Being John Malkovich.

If there are a hundred 'me's' then who am I?

There are myriad me's but I assert at least that I am unique. In the LowLife sketch because they pretty much all look alike what distinguishes the same characters is not so much their appearance, as their actions. And but for God's love for each human and puppet, I hope, this is also the case for beings. We are defined by what we do but what we do is sometimes determinded by how we look. Take the nodel Kate Mossbury for example.

In terms of puppetry the best peformance was by the plumber. You can see his picture below. He did everything action packed in slow motion as he tried to reach a giant drainpipe he was supposed to mend. In his actions humans their own kinetic behaviour magnified as it were. Puppets show humans new perspectives on how they move and behave.

Bud the plumber in LowLife

Please write to: Wandsworth Borough Council to save the Battersea Arts Centre from having its funding cut.

www.wandsworth.gov.uk

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! if you don't support the kultus that stops you from acting like a wild beast of the jungle. God knows London is a jungle these days.....

Puppet or Puppet-Master

This is George W.Bush speaking to an assembly of muppets some of whom applauded his impeachable policies. It's easy to jump on an anti-W bandwagon but the mess in Iraq is costing you humans a great deal in terms of your pockets. $400 billion dollars and rising.


"That's such a selfish outlook," I hear you say.

Well, I was about to add that if you had had a thousand restless nights and possibly one relative killed, kidnapped or murdered because of this "man's" decisions, as an Iraqi or a member of the human family, you would probably find it hard to have any respect for him, however nice a person he may be, which, while not agreeing with his policies, I once thought he was. Not anymore. He's become corroded, as has Condeleeza Rice. Admit wrong. It' easier for everyone.

Cheyney and Rumsfeld are the pigs of no humility in this tragedy.

With people like that making one vomit because of their lack of humility one wonders how far away we are from another Hitler rising to power. An eco-Hitler could be on the cards. Hitler, one is often reminded, was a vegetarian.

Here's a link to imdb.com http://imdb.com/title/tt0363163/ where you can get a copy of Downfall. Some people think this film is too forgiving to Hitler and there is something in that. But where they are wrong is in thinking that evil can be spotted easily like with Darth Vader. Real evil that destroys the human family starts with a mask that deceives extensively because it is MASKED. It is the Emperor's New Clothes.The German nation in that era were culturally and technologically quite advanced, yet....

The Fairy Tale Theme Will Always Recur

Life Could Be Fairly Fairytale If We Let It

If I am you and you are me,
Why do you think you have to disarm me
From the charms I wish to weave?
And the enchantments I wish to believe?
Is it because secretly you grieve?
The wrongs you did
Opening a Promethean lid
And finding that your vision skidded
When you thought you had only kidded

Prayer and Peace Be With You

It is time to pray. I am in trouble I think. The Cobbler de Goo of B-b-b- has upset me terribly. When 'I' went to see Bunuel's Runaway Streetcar I sneaked out of mass at the Brompton Oratory and saw a great street-sign for the blog. Perhaps God is down on me and this is why things are turning out so uncoolly.

Please God come to my aid. Please friends, all of you who visit this blog remember me in your spiritual rituals.