Category: Art & Architecture

Less Bohemian, More Czech

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

Less Bohemian, More Czech

All great Artists have a vice,
But I’m a tepid type –
I try to keep my manners nice
And give no cause for hype.
I’ll never be a rabble-rousing rebel,
Nor a cad,
Just knocking back the trebles
On my way to going mad,
With my pockets full of pebbles
And a need for worship bad…
I’m much more pipe-and-slippers (less the pipe).
I guess I am a Larkin or an Eliot at heart
Than a Dylan or a Kingsley with a passion full of art –
I mean, I have a mongrel and a mortgage for a start !
And I always found Romantics over-ripe.
I guess I’m not an Artist-capital-A,
But that’s okay.
(And it really ain’t my mode, that way.)
I’m hardly a conspiracist, eccentric and uncouth,
I’m not a Goth or horny toad, or tender, tortured youth,
Or rainbow-dressed consumptive who is dying for some Truth –
That’s just a load of self-obsessing tripe !

Kosher Slaughter

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
In Anticipation of the Guests by The Dots

Kosher Slaughter

Why are there so many zombies on our screens these days ?
I’d say that they are testament to our improving ways.
We’ve beaten violence, beggared hunger, massacred disease,
And quarantined our lust for gore into our PG fantasies –
Safely evil, nicely ugly, non-stain blood in quick-rip veins,
Just round ’em up and mow ’em down in corporate campaigns.
Mumbling, lurching, fodder-johnnies,
Out-of-towners, dirty commies –
Revel in some mindless fun before they eat our brains.

Queasy over blaming Mongols for their famous hordes ?
Then let’s recast with green-skinned orks to quench our thirsty swords.
Coldly-logic androids cause no controversial mess
When we crush their next uprising – show no mercy for the merciless !
Shoot a Nazi, gas a pedo – harmless japes for kids to play,
Just regulation bogeymen without the shades of grey.
Exterminating creepy-crawlies,
Squashing greater-goods with trolleys –
Killing humans sure is fun when there’s no guilt to pay !

Biblio Tech

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Vintage Bookshelf Wallpaper by Young & Battaglia

Biblio Tech

Every gentleman fills up his library:
Every manor and palace and hall
Has a room full of shelving that’s crammed full of bindings,
All equally mannered and equally tall.
And nowhere is half a row empty,
And nowhere are bookstacks for want of a board.
Do gentlemen skim for as long as they’ve shelving,
Then quit once their volumes are suitably stored ?

Unsigned

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Detail from a carved panel by Grinling Gibbons, originally in St Pauls, Covent Garden.  Legend has it that he would sneak a peapod into every commision as a sort of signature, and would only carve it opened if he had been paid for the work.  (Or is it that he would show a pea missing from inside if he’d received payment ?  Probably neither.)

Unsigned

She never signed her painting –
It always seemed a little vain
To have her name just floating there
Unnoticed by her sitter.
She’s didn’t want such tainting
To blemish with a boasting stain,
To clutter up her canvas square
With copperplated litter.

She always hoped her styling
Would clearly show who held the brush –
And if that didn’t tip the wink
Then hey ho, mum’s the word.
But she could not help smiling,
And sneaking-in (but keep it hush)
In ev’ry artwork, paint or ink,
A trademark ladybird.

It could be on a daffodil,
It could be woven on a dress,
Or scratched into a windowsill –
It’s anybody’s guess.
It could be jewelled into a brooch,
Or iced upon a currant bun –
Or yet emblazoned on a coach,
But definitely fun.

So whether pest or saintling,
Her beetles were her secret claim –
Some were bigger, others smaller,
Some were rather blurred.
She never signed her painting,
And history forgot her name –
So galleries must call her
The Lady Ladybird.

Portals

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Some example wares of the London Door Company.

Portals

I’ve seen too many doors,
And they’re nothing much, just doors –
Just as expected.
I open them, I close them,
Or I pass them by unnoticed,
Disconnected.
I’ve turned too many knobs
And I’ve knocked too many knockers
In the gloom,
Yet never thought about them
Till I find I need a way
To leave the room.

I’ve seen too many doors,
Be they oaken, deal, or plywood,
Or cold steel.
I push them and I pull them,
Or I sometimes have to slide them
With a squeal.
I’ve crossed so many thresholds
And I’ve stepped on many stoops,
Both front and aft,
Yet never thought about them
Till I find I need a way
To stop the draught.

Fishes & Physics

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Amazonian Guaperva Fish by Francis Willughby (at least, I think he did his own illustrations).

Fishes & Physics

Gentle Francis Willughby,
To best of his ability
Has written us a thriller – see,
The History of Fish !
Illustrated lib’rally,
Meticulous and jibber-free –
No charlatan or fibber, he,
But honest, if not swish.
The Royal-dubbed Society
Have praised his work most high and free,
And published with propriety
His dense and hearty dish –
Examining their parity
And countless similarity,
To classify with clarity
Each finble, scule and gish.
His work will lead inex’rably
To Karl Linné’s complexity
And Darwin’s sexy theory
That the bishops try to squish –
Yet mocked in perpetuity,
His book an incongruity,
For lacking the acuity
Of Newton’s masterpiece –
His grandiose Principia,
That makes the heavens trippier
And gravity much nippier,
Is straining for release.
But things are tight financially,
With profits down substantially
And Newton sees his chances flee
Despite the Fellows’ wish –
They cannot foot the bill, you see,
The budget’s blown on Willughby –
But don’t show Frank hostility,
He’s not so queer a fish.

Dürer’s-Rhino Syndrome

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
The Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer, though don’t ask me if it’s the right way round.

Dürer’s-Rhino Syndrome

Toothy-mawed pteranodon,
A stegosaur who drags its tail,
Old T-Rex with no feathers on,
Dimetrodon with a humpy sail –
However much they’re wrong,
At least they never hem or hedge –
They’re always big and bold and cutting edge !

Pity the paleo-artists
Who bring these skeletons to life,
Who are the public midwife
To a thousand playground dreams –
No sooner have they started,
When a fossil or a paper
Is transforming facts to vapour
And is picking at the seams.

One day, in a century,
They’ll laugh at our sauropods
For not swimming in the sea –
No wonder how they look so odd…
No matter how carefully
We draw iguanodon his thumb,
We are the Crystal Palace beasts to come.

Pity the paleo-artists,
Their work is only for today –
For if they don’t give way,
Then their errors just persist.
But don’t be brash or heartless –
Their legacy is in the seeds
That captures, stimulates, and feeds
Each future dino-tologist.

Crystal Palace Iguanadons, sculpted by Benjamin Hawkins, photographed by Jes

No Cover, No Sample

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Mike on Pexels.com

No Cover, No Sample

Ev’ry thing I’ve ever heard is in me,
Running through me,
Lying low.
Ev’ry song and ev’ry word within me
Helps renew me,
Helps me grow.
I honour all who came before me,
Credit all who built my story –
Don’t forget and don’t ignore –
For without them, then I would not be me,
I’d have no core.
But all their work is cogitated,
Filtered, altered, complicated –
All I ever loved and hated,
Melts and bonds and stirs the pot of me
In which they pour.
Inspiration is no sin,
But make it ours, and make it new –
So add some flesh beneath the skin
And add some point of view.
All I saw and all I heard,
I freely borrow, freely quote –
But never, never word-for-word
Or note-for-note.

I’ve always wanted to call my record label NCNS records, for ‘no covers, no samples’ – and both would be banned, only putting out brand new songs.  But then again, there are numerous songs I adore that feature both, so I should watch what I say.

But on the subject of samples, can I have a quick grumble over the start of Two Tribes.  We hear Patrick Allen’s voice lifted directly from the Protect & Survive public information film, but they’ve chosen a very ungrammatical moment: “The air attack warning sounds like.  This is the sound.” Sounds like what, Patrick ?  And then his next sampled line (“When you hear the attack warning, you and your family must take cover…”) is cut-off before the final words (“…at once”), given a very abrupt cadence.  Are we to interpret this as the announcer being suddenly overwhelmed by the blast ?  These two sloppy bits editing have been bugging me since 1984...

RKO

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment

RKO

I remember Sunday afternoons
And watching classic black-and-whites,
Though not so much for giant apes,
Or top hats, kanes or men in tights –
But all my fascination fell
On the opening seconds-worth,
Wond’ring at that giant mast,
And where its feet made earth –
Novaya Zemlya first, for one,
And Svalbard, I concluded, next,
Then Ellesmere Island for the third,
But the last one had me vexed…
There’s nothing there but shifting ice,
Though far more then than left today –
It’s just as well they’d long gone bust
Before the ice gave way.

Salisbury Cathedral Vaccination Centre

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Christ Cleansing the Temple by Bernardino Mei

Salisbury Cathedral Vaccination Centre

Angels in the ceiling, salvation in the needles,
Organ practice in the air, the bishop looking proud –
Gone is the busyness of canons, deans, and beadles,
But the locked-up church can once again give welcome to the crowd.
Monks used to pray here, monks who ministered the sick –
But these days it is nurses who are rolling up the sleeves.
So what would Jesus say at their death-defying trick ?,
Their communion, regardless what each congregant believes.
Would he drive them out, back to their lab’ratories ?
Or would he get stuck-in with his newfound clientelle ?
Stained-glass in the windows, telling ancient stories –
Maybe in a thousand years, they’ll tell this one as well.

Strictly speaking, there were no monks at Salisbury, but rather secular canons.  These performed the same duties, but weren’t under a monastic rule, and lived in the town rather than in adjacent cells.  Sort of like day-pupils rather than boarders.