ART ON YOUR SLEEVE # 1
I lifted the period piece above from the attractively named Pork Tornado weblog (no friend of Islam, he). Always a tonic to see young people having a good time. Readers will note that they’ve all got their clothes on & that there isn’t a recreational drug in sight.
Further examples of the triumphant pairing of music & the fine arts coming up soon…
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Whilst looking for some appropriately gothic music for a fairytale-with-a-message being put together by my 16+ Drama students, I remembered Nico’s Desertshore. In 1970 Nico – she of Velvet Underground fame – quit New York City for Rome & London & in that year, guided by ex-VU shaman John Cale, she released this uniquely chilling album. It was emphatically out of step with the fading psychedelia & nascent politico-rock that was dominating turntables at that time, but like so much of the authentically weird musical experimentation that went on during that brief interregnum, it’s now something a cult classic.
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It was Robert Browning, of course, who murmured wistfully, “O to be in England, now that April’s here…” Bearing in mind that the lines were composed in Paris in the springtime, it strikes me as a piss-poor option. But maybe he had a day like today in mind. Not a cloud to be seen & a sun higher in the sky than is strictly decent at this time of year. The birds all a-twitter, the blossom abundant, cowslips, primroses, late daffodils, tulips in flower. The only downer was the sharp increase in the number of men of a certain age sporting those skater-dude trousers that stop just below the knee, making the wearer look like he’s got no knees. The streets of Hitchin were full of these hairy-legged Toulouse-Lautrecs.
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12:03:50 AM 
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