The CD of Unthinkable Skies, which features my poetry set to music by Belvedere Mountain Express is now available as a download from CD Baby, or as a home-made (and beautifully packaged) CD-R from here.
As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Calvet
I'm in the middle of reviewing the Edinburgh International Film Festival! I've seen ten excellent films so far, but one that made a particular impression on me is Calvet (you can read my review here). This is the amazing story of how Jean Marc Calvet's life was transformed when he discovered art.
I was delighted yesterday to be able to chat with Jean Marc and with Dominic Allan, the director of the film.
Jean Marc Calvet had a hard childhood and an early career as a bodyguard, a French Legionnaire and a vice cop. He abandoned his partner and young son to take a shady job in the USA, which led to him absconding to Central America with huge amounts of cash he had stolen from his employer.
Dominic Allan has worked in TV, directing such films as The Pipeline; Mandela: The Living Legend and Israel Undercover. He was travelling in Nicaragua in 2004, when he met Jean Marc in a restaurant, which was decorated with huge paintings. These paintings of Jean Marc's made a big impression on Dominic but it was only two years later that he had the idea to make a film about how art had transformed Jean Marc's life. Jean Marc admitted in our interview that at that stage he hadn't entirely seen Dominic's vision, but that he saw the film project as an extension of the therapy that art already was for him.
The most memorable part of the film for me is where Jean Marc discovers painting as therapy. There is an extended sequence of impressionistic visuals and soundscapes that recreate the drug-fuelled hallucinations that Jean Marc experienced for several months while he had imprisoned himself in his house in Costa Rica. At some point, he discovers several pots of paints and literally starts throwing the paint around the rooms. At this stage, Jean Marc says, he would deny he was an artist, when people asked him. It was only five years later, when someone contacted him wanting to put on an exhibition of his work in New York that he realised that he was a real artist.
Jean Marc has used lots of different styles in his art. In his early days as a painter, people would compare his work to Jackson Pollock or Jean-Michel Basquait but he'd never heard of these artists. So he set out to learn as much as he could about art and became an avid reader of art magazines. He is entirely self-taught and uses different styles depending on what best fits what he wants to say. Art, he said, is like a 'big walk inside' himself.
Jean Marc is now a respected artist and is inspiring the next generation of artists, not least his own daughter, who is deaf. She is allowed a lot of freedom in his studio where she enjoyed expressing herself through art and she appears briefly in the film.
Dominic had wanted to use film techniques that would best capture the immediacy of Jean Marc's art and the intensity of his life story. He wanted to mostly avoid reconstructions of the past (though one scene in Jean Marc's old house on Costa Rica is a very effective reconstruction with slides of his first paintings projected onto the now white-washed walls). Dominic chose to intercut the narrative with segments of impressionistic film to suit the mood of the story. This approach works brilliantly and really does give the film a sense of immediacy and emotional impact.
Dominic said he wants to make films that are inspiring and Calvet certainly is! The film should be touring various film festivals in the next few months and hopefully should get released into cinemas after that. If you get the chance, see it! Meanwhile you can see some of Jean Marc's paintings and read more about his life on his website here.
The website for the film Calvet is here and there's also a Facebook page here!
Thanks to Edinburgh International Film Festival for making this interview possible and to Jean Marc and Dominic for making the time to chat to me!
As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more. This article also appears on Crafty Green Poet.
I was delighted yesterday to be able to chat with Jean Marc and with Dominic Allan, the director of the film.
Jean Marc Calvet had a hard childhood and an early career as a bodyguard, a French Legionnaire and a vice cop. He abandoned his partner and young son to take a shady job in the USA, which led to him absconding to Central America with huge amounts of cash he had stolen from his employer.
Dominic Allan has worked in TV, directing such films as The Pipeline; Mandela: The Living Legend and Israel Undercover. He was travelling in Nicaragua in 2004, when he met Jean Marc in a restaurant, which was decorated with huge paintings. These paintings of Jean Marc's made a big impression on Dominic but it was only two years later that he had the idea to make a film about how art had transformed Jean Marc's life. Jean Marc admitted in our interview that at that stage he hadn't entirely seen Dominic's vision, but that he saw the film project as an extension of the therapy that art already was for him.
The most memorable part of the film for me is where Jean Marc discovers painting as therapy. There is an extended sequence of impressionistic visuals and soundscapes that recreate the drug-fuelled hallucinations that Jean Marc experienced for several months while he had imprisoned himself in his house in Costa Rica. At some point, he discovers several pots of paints and literally starts throwing the paint around the rooms. At this stage, Jean Marc says, he would deny he was an artist, when people asked him. It was only five years later, when someone contacted him wanting to put on an exhibition of his work in New York that he realised that he was a real artist.
Jean Marc has used lots of different styles in his art. In his early days as a painter, people would compare his work to Jackson Pollock or Jean-Michel Basquait but he'd never heard of these artists. So he set out to learn as much as he could about art and became an avid reader of art magazines. He is entirely self-taught and uses different styles depending on what best fits what he wants to say. Art, he said, is like a 'big walk inside' himself.
Jean Marc is now a respected artist and is inspiring the next generation of artists, not least his own daughter, who is deaf. She is allowed a lot of freedom in his studio where she enjoyed expressing herself through art and she appears briefly in the film.
Dominic had wanted to use film techniques that would best capture the immediacy of Jean Marc's art and the intensity of his life story. He wanted to mostly avoid reconstructions of the past (though one scene in Jean Marc's old house on Costa Rica is a very effective reconstruction with slides of his first paintings projected onto the now white-washed walls). Dominic chose to intercut the narrative with segments of impressionistic film to suit the mood of the story. This approach works brilliantly and really does give the film a sense of immediacy and emotional impact.
Dominic said he wants to make films that are inspiring and Calvet certainly is! The film should be touring various film festivals in the next few months and hopefully should get released into cinemas after that. If you get the chance, see it! Meanwhile you can see some of Jean Marc's paintings and read more about his life on his website here.
The website for the film Calvet is here and there's also a Facebook page here!
Thanks to Edinburgh International Film Festival for making this interview possible and to Jean Marc and Dominic for making the time to chat to me!
As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more. This article also appears on Crafty Green Poet.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Edinburgh International Film Festival
This lunchtime I went along to collect my press pack for the Edinburgh International Film Festival! As I've said before, I'm very impressed with this year's programme, based purely on the fact that there are more films I want to see than there have been for years. So I'm looking forward very much to seeing lots of films over the next week or so. I'll review most of the films I see over on Crafty Green Poet, but one or two might find themselves reviewed on this blog. And of course I'm delighted to find myself mentioned in this article on bloggers to watch out for at the festival.
As ever, text in green contains hyperlinks to other webpages where you can find out more.
As ever, text in green contains hyperlinks to other webpages where you can find out more.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Leamington Lift Bridge, Union Canal
Leamington Lift Bridge is a vertical lift bridge located near the end of the Union Canal in Edinburgh. It was built by Armstrong of Newcastle in 1906 and was originally located further up the canal, which then extended further towards the centre of Edinburgh. When the canal was shortened, the bridge was moved to its current location. You can read more about this fascinating bridge (and see animations of how the mechanism works!) here.
Edinburgh City Council is holding a consulation on the future of the Union Canal, which you can read and comment on here. You can read my blog post about the consultation here. You can read more about our most recent visit to the canal here (which includes a photo of a family of swans).For Sunday Bridges
Monday, June 06, 2011
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
This is Jeanette Winterson at her best. I've read most of her novels and this is one of my favourites. The story follows Henri, a French peasant who hero worships Napoleon. He is torn between his pride in serving Napoleon his meals as the army travels Europe and his feelings of not belonging in the army.
The second strand of the novel follows Villanelle, a young Venetian, born with webbed feet (as myth suggests all Venetian fishermen are). She dresses as a boy to work in the Casino, where she meets a mysterious married woman, who becomes her lover for a while while her husband is away.
Eventually the two narratives merge - everything is connected.
The novel is beautifully written. The language is gorgeous, but also concise, there's barely a word out of place. There are wonderful touches of surrealism, as in the shapeshifting Venice of everchanging waterways and the fishermen's webbed feet. It feels like an exagerrated picture of Venice as it really is, and the reader can almost accept it as being real, just as we can almost accept as real the alternative version of history we're presented with.
Wonderful book.
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, published by Penguin
For the LGBT Reading Challenge and the Italy in Books Reading Challenge
The second strand of the novel follows Villanelle, a young Venetian, born with webbed feet (as myth suggests all Venetian fishermen are). She dresses as a boy to work in the Casino, where she meets a mysterious married woman, who becomes her lover for a while while her husband is away.
Eventually the two narratives merge - everything is connected.
The novel is beautifully written. The language is gorgeous, but also concise, there's barely a word out of place. There are wonderful touches of surrealism, as in the shapeshifting Venice of everchanging waterways and the fishermen's webbed feet. It feels like an exagerrated picture of Venice as it really is, and the reader can almost accept it as being real, just as we can almost accept as real the alternative version of history we're presented with.
Wonderful book.
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, published by Penguin
For the LGBT Reading Challenge and the Italy in Books Reading Challenge
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Hollywood Haiku
I was delighted that one of my film haiku was a runner up in the Best for Film Hollywood Haiku competition! You can read the winning entries here.
My entries were originally posted on this blog here and here.
I'll be reviewing lots of films during the Edinburgh International Film Festival, mostly over on Crafty Green Poet. You can read my initial thoughts about the festival here and here.
My entries were originally posted on this blog here and here.
I'll be reviewing lots of films during the Edinburgh International Film Festival, mostly over on Crafty Green Poet. You can read my initial thoughts about the festival here and here.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Edinburgh International Film Festival (2)
I blogged recently about the Edinburgh International Film Festival and mentioned how excited I was by the programme. Yesterday Crafty Green Boyfriend finally got the chance to look through the programme and said it was very disappointing for him, but then we have very different tastes in films! I'm particularly impressed that the festival has ditched the red carpet celebrity focussed strands of the last few years in favour of a more serious, issue based approach (but then I can see a lot of people not agreeing with me on that, as we live in such celebrity obsessed times). I'm also impressed by the number of films that have an environmental theme to them. My views this year are also coloured by the fact that (whisper it) I have a press pass, which means I can see all the films I want to see in return for reviews (mostly over on Crafty Green Poet) and for some general publicity (like this blog post).
Howard of Belvedere Express made a very valid point about the price of Film Festival Tickets in his comment on my first post about the festival, but I'd say:
a) it's better value than the Edinburgh International Book Festival where you pay £10 to listen to an author market their book which they then expect you to buy (I'm not knocking the Book Festival as such, I've been to some great events there - the best ever being last year's reading from two South African poets I had never previously heard of).
b) my secret to the Film Festival is to pick the films least likely to ever get released (because they're obscure or deal with unpopular topics) and to avoid going to films that are likely to get general release - why pay festival prices for a film that will be in all the cinemas only two weeks later?
Howard of Belvedere Express made a very valid point about the price of Film Festival Tickets in his comment on my first post about the festival, but I'd say:
a) it's better value than the Edinburgh International Book Festival where you pay £10 to listen to an author market their book which they then expect you to buy (I'm not knocking the Book Festival as such, I've been to some great events there - the best ever being last year's reading from two South African poets I had never previously heard of).
b) my secret to the Film Festival is to pick the films least likely to ever get released (because they're obscure or deal with unpopular topics) and to avoid going to films that are likely to get general release - why pay festival prices for a film that will be in all the cinemas only two weeks later?
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Customer Care
This isn't really something I would normally blog about but some things that have happened recently have annoyed me and another couple have really pleased me so i thought I'd write about them!
First the good:
Saraband Books held a competition on Twitter, asking people to tweet about Woodlands. I was honoured and delighted that my tweeted haiku won this competition. I was equally delighted by the fact that Saraband sent me a direct message on Twitter immediately asking for my address and congratulating me and telling me when they would post out my prize. I was even more delighted when the prize (a copy of the wonderful Woodlanders book, which I will review on Crafty Green Poet in due course) arrived the next day.
As readers of this blog will be aware, I recently entered a Hollywood Haiku competition on Best for Film, which asked for haiku reviews of films. I sent in two haiku (you can read them in the posts below) and was annoyed when the second one bounced back! I left a comment in their blog and within a few minutes I'd received a reply asking me to send my entry to an alternative email address, which I did. Then today they've emailed all contestants, apologising for the bounced emails, extending the deadline to 23 May and assuring us all our future entries to the competition will reach the organisers!
So those are two examples of good customer care, unlike:
The publisher who shall remain nameless who held a competition on Twitter, which I won, but even six weeks later, after a reminder via Twitter and an email direct to the company, still has not only not sent my prize, but they haven't even communicated with me at all!
The environmental organisation in Scotland, who shall remain nameless, who contacted me, about a month ago, to say they were so pleased that Crafty Green Poet drove a considerable amount of traffic to their website, that would reward me with a substantial free gift. They then have not communicated with me at all, despite me asking them for clarification. I had linked to their website with no thought other than visitors to my blog would enjoy their site and their charity, and never expected to receive anything in return. Now however I have begun to feel antagonistic to this organisation, because their customer care is so poor.
The moral of the story is that if you want to offer a gift or a prize then you make very sure that you actually deliver on your promises otherwise you risk annoying people and losing customer goodwill.
First the good:
Saraband Books held a competition on Twitter, asking people to tweet about Woodlands. I was honoured and delighted that my tweeted haiku won this competition. I was equally delighted by the fact that Saraband sent me a direct message on Twitter immediately asking for my address and congratulating me and telling me when they would post out my prize. I was even more delighted when the prize (a copy of the wonderful Woodlanders book, which I will review on Crafty Green Poet in due course) arrived the next day.
As readers of this blog will be aware, I recently entered a Hollywood Haiku competition on Best for Film, which asked for haiku reviews of films. I sent in two haiku (you can read them in the posts below) and was annoyed when the second one bounced back! I left a comment in their blog and within a few minutes I'd received a reply asking me to send my entry to an alternative email address, which I did. Then today they've emailed all contestants, apologising for the bounced emails, extending the deadline to 23 May and assuring us all our future entries to the competition will reach the organisers!
So those are two examples of good customer care, unlike:
The publisher who shall remain nameless who held a competition on Twitter, which I won, but even six weeks later, after a reminder via Twitter and an email direct to the company, still has not only not sent my prize, but they haven't even communicated with me at all!
The environmental organisation in Scotland, who shall remain nameless, who contacted me, about a month ago, to say they were so pleased that Crafty Green Poet drove a considerable amount of traffic to their website, that would reward me with a substantial free gift. They then have not communicated with me at all, despite me asking them for clarification. I had linked to their website with no thought other than visitors to my blog would enjoy their site and their charity, and never expected to receive anything in return. Now however I have begun to feel antagonistic to this organisation, because their customer care is so poor.
The moral of the story is that if you want to offer a gift or a prize then you make very sure that you actually deliver on your promises otherwise you risk annoying people and losing customer goodwill.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Film Haiku 2
team of samurai
recleaim noble heritage
kill everybody
(a haiku review of 13 Assassins)
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
recleaim noble heritage
kill everybody
(a haiku review of 13 Assassins)
This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.
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