posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, May 13, 2004
Monday, May 03, 2004
Literary nonsense of Sukumar Ray once again!
Dungaroo, Flipfloposaurus, Billy-Hawk Calf among other animals paid a peppy visit to a book store here and regaled book lovers!
They are, after all, characters from the nonsensical world created by legendary Bengali writer Sukumar Ray.
The occasion was the launch of 'Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray' by Sampurna Chattarji, an English translation of the Bengali original, at the Oxford Bookstore here in association with Penguin Books India.
This was followed by a dramatic rendition from the book by Ravi Khote, a multiple-medium performance artiste.
This selection offers the best of Ray's world -- pun-riddled, fun-fiddled poetry from 'Abol Tabol' and 'Khai-Khai', stories of schoolboy pranks from 'Pagla Dashu' and madcap explorers 'Heshoram Hushiyarer Diary', and the unforgettable harum-scarum classic of 'Haw-Jaw-Baw-Raw-Law'.
All the stories and poems are accompanied by Ray's inimitable illustrations.
India News Channel | 29 April 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Monday, May 03, 2004
Sunday, April 04, 2004
O Poetry! Let us celebrate month with anthologies of the bad, good
Bloom has assembled an anthology of representative poems by English and American writers. Seen in such a light, this is a fine compendium, particularly valuable for Bloom's important and insightful introductions to the poets and comments on individual poems.
But many of those poems are far from "best." Bloom's tastes are catholic and so magnanimous that he includes work by such agreeable but minor poets (among the Americans) as Jones Very and Trumbull Stickney, Elinor Wylie and John Brooks Wheelwright. It's a gathering, in part, of Bloom's favorite forgotten poets, and his mantras in the book are "Now little regarded . . ." and "Now neglected . . ." He seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between "best" and "charming," a category that would require a different book.
"Poe," Bloom writes, "is a bad poet," but since Poe "is also inescapable," the anthologist "glumly" includes two poems, "Israfel" and "The City in the Sea."
Bloom is fond of English odd balls like Thomas Love Beddoes and William Savage Landor - what, no George Crabbe?; of the sentimentalists of the flaming 1890s, a terrible decade for poetry, like Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson ("I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind"); and of the great purveyors of pungent nonsense Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, who, one admits, deserve a place in some pantheon.
commercialappeal.com | 4 April 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, April 04, 2004
The Best of Modern Dance
Because [Martha] Graham saw dance as expressive rather than merely decorative, it freed generations of young dancers to explore a range of emotional and psychological themes that weren't available in traditional ballet.
From April 14 to April 25 at City Center in Manhattan, the company will present twelve performances that include a spectacular assortment of classics and revivals with a live orchestra.
The company is scheduled to perform some of Graham's most notable pieces such as the powerful all-female Sketches from Chronicle, the classic Errand Into the Maze and the jazz-inspired Maple Leaf Rag. The season includes revivals of Cave of the Heart and the erotic Circe, along with the Owl and the Pussycat, with the Edward Lear text narrated by André Leon Talley, Vogue's editor-at-large.
The Hudson Reporter | 4 April 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, April 04, 2004
Friday, March 26, 2004
The kid in me is still alive
"Youth is such a wonderful thing; it's a shame to waste it on the young!" This aphorism by George Bernard Shaw brilliantly exposes the ludicrous side of the romantic idealization of children, so characteristic of the 19th century.
For generations, religious leaders, educators and parents in the Western world had viewed childhood as an inferior, defective, irrational and sin-filled stage of human development. Then, this period of life underwent a cultural rehabilitation. From the late 18th century on, and especially in the 19th century, childhood was raised to the level of an ideal, representing moral purity, innocence, honesty and creativity. Childhood became the symbol of everything good in humanity, or for what humans could become if they were not spoiled by corrupt and hypocritical adult society.
...
Edward Lear, the eminent nonsense poet, was diagnosed by psychologists as someone who had 'never emotionally recovered' from his family's adventures. 'Perhaps because his childhood was cut short so suddenly and cruelly, he refused to grow up and remained, inside, an eternal child.' Is the 'eternal child' inside the real, pure self the pinnacle of the realization of the artist's unique personality, or is it no more than a construct, a projection, a regressive fantasy that charges the act of artistic fiction?
[A review by Galia Benziman of "Big Children: Beloved Children's Authors - Their Lives and Work." Three volumes: "The English" (228 pages); "The Americans" (262 pages) and "Especially the Europeans" (272 pages) by Yehuda Atlas, Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing, Sifrei Hemed, 2003.]
Haaretz - Israel News | 26 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, March 26, 2004
Sunday, March 21, 2004
No Place for Absurdity
By Eric Gibson
J.K. Rowling famously negotiated ironclad agreements with Warner Bros. to make sure that her Harry Potter books made it to the screen in the right way. (What you saw was what you read.) The stewards of Beatrix Potter have kept a watchful eye, too, permitting animated versions of her stories that hew to the letter and spirit of her work.
The legacies of A.A. Milne and Rudyard Kipling have not been so lucky, however. Their literary greatness is unrecognizable in Disney's adaptations of "Winnie the Pooh'' and "The Jungle Book.'' More grotesquely, Dr. Seuss, in movie form, has suffered the same fate. Hollywood cashed in as Carrey and Myers mugged and romped, earning each film about $250 million. (With its recent video release, "Cat'' is set to earn more.) But such success has nearly wrecked the brand.
As a writer, Geisel was the heir of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. To be sure, embedded in his stories are messages and morals ranging right across the political spectrum. But at root he was an absurdist, a writer who, like his illustrious predecessors, took a childlike delight in upending the ordered universe with puns and playful fantasy and the incongruous juxtapositions of ideas -- the "humming fish'' of "The Lorax,'' for example, or the antlered creature, the Gack, of "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'' ("At our house/We play out back./We play a game/Called Ring the Gack.'').
Mercury News | 21 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, March 21, 2004
Thursday, March 18, 2004
The lord of misrule
By Nicola Shulman
The British response to Dr Seuss has not, so far, been suitable reading for Ms Dimond-Cates. It may be that we have an embarrassment of excellent children's writers of our own, whom we may take seriously instead, if we are so inclined; or it may be another aspect of our defensive hostility to a younger, ascendant culture. At any rate, the reviewer for Junior Bookshelf in 1963 thought Dr Seuss 'often tiresome and sometimes vulgar... Compared with Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll he seems madly common, slick, unmemorable.'
[...]
Critics prospecting for artistic antecedents have, naturally, cited the impossible perspectives of Escher and the melting hardware of the surrealist movement. It is certainly true that the nearest things in creation to Dr Seuss's krazy-golf Whoville are the concrete sculptures put up in the Mexican jungle by the Englishman Edward James, much under the influence of surrealism himself. But if I had to ascribe Seuss's work to a school - pseud's corner notwithstanding - I should choose one from literature, not painting: nonsense. Seuss may be the first nonsense painter.
Telegraph | 18 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, March 18, 2004
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
There once was a wee humble ditty
By Shannon Roe
Today being St. Patrick's Day, the least we can do is doff our derbies to that bit of Irish doggerel called the limerick.
From its name, you might think this five-line verse form originated in the town of Limerick, Ireland. But not necessarily. No one knows for sure where it came from - or exactly when, for that matter. But given the wee verse's naughty reputation, it seems only fitting that its ancestry be mysterious.
Christian Science Monitor | 17 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Hundreds attend 'Seussentenial' parties
The man who made the Grinch, Sam-I-Am and Bar-ba-loots household names was the inspiration for several local parties last week.
To celebrate the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, hundreds of Rolling Meadows residents attended separate parties March 2 and Saturday. A similar party in Palatine drew more than 100 people, and several District 15 schools in Palatine and Rolling Meadows also held their own parties last week.
[Just one of the many similar articles]
Palatine News | 11 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, March 11, 2004
At Staten Island Academy, a reason for every rhyme
Seventy students took their turn in the spotlight yesterday at Staten Island Academy's annual poetry recital, sharing the rhymes of their favorite poets...
First-place eighth-grade winners were Carey Shuffman, reciting "Host House" by Robert Frost, and Joseph Konigsbert reciting "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" by Edward Lear.
silive | 10 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, March 11, 2004
Music by women, but not for women only
In addition, the concert will include the works of Margaret Ruthven Lang whose life spanned the years 1867-1972. 'Her "Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures" are short and easy, a perfect complement to the more complex work of Marion Bauer, who was composing around the same time, Held said, adding, that she plans to include the pictures, by Edward Lear, in the program. Hazel will sing the lyrics and Held will be at the piano for both pieces.
Tri-Town News | 11 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, March 11, 2004
Sunday, March 07, 2004
Start with rhymes
By DAphne Lee
Aside from being easy on the ear, rhyming stories are also easy on the tongue although anyone who has grappled with Dr Seuss or Edward Lear's deliciously madcap nonsense may beg to differ. My husband and I are forever arguing about the correct pronunciation of Lear's Quangle Wangle Quee, but, as it's nonsense, I guess there is no wrong way to say it.
The Star Online: Lifestyle | 7 March 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, March 07, 2004
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Neil Ardley
Neil Ardley, who died on February 23 aged 66, achieved distinction in two entirely separate professions, as a jazz composer and an author of informative books for young people; in the former role he wrote and recorded such acclaimed albums as Le Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe and Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows, while in the latter his work sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
[Neil Ardley composed what I consider the best Lear arrangement with his and Ivor Cutler's version of "The Dong with a Luminous Nose".]
Telegraph
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, March 06, 2004
Thursday, February 19, 2004
See Heaven in a wild flower
[A review of Tate Britain's Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature, until 3 May, by Rachel Campbell-Johnston.]
Art had been suffocated by an overlay of traditions and conventions, straitjacketed by stock academic formulas. A return to nature was Ruskin's clarion call. "Go to nature in all singleness of heart," he commanded in his first volume of Modern Painters, ". . . having no other thoughts but to penetrate her meaning . . . rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing."
The Pre-Raphaelites and their followers did this quite literally. Leaving their stuffy artists' studios (and the even stuffier compositions that had been concocted on Claudian principles inside them), they headed for the great outdoors, dedicated practitioners of plein-air painting some 20 years before French Impressionism and the era when Manet would paint Monet painting in his open boat. [...]
Holman Hunt set off for the Holy Land in the company of Thomas Seddon and Edward Lear; his mission to bring authenticity to biblical depictions. He tramped to a spot "which few travellers visit and none revisit . . . the wretchedest place in the whole world" (the place he believed to be the location of the ancient Sodom, accursed of God) to paint his Scapegoat. Every hair of the sad, cowering creature — it died after the experience of being tethered in a tray of salt for months (animals were harmed in the making of this show) — is counted. Every feature of the mountainous geology is studied with painstaking accuracy.
And yet it was this obsession with geology and consequent realisations that the world was far older than biblical traditions suggested, that led to alternative theories that shook the foundations of faith and eventually led in some quarters to the foundation of a new religion — the religion of art. The birth of Aestheticism was heralded.
Times Online - Entertainment |18 February 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, February 19, 2004
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Wisdom of David Brent 'more memorable than Shakespeare'
Shakespeare's most famous quotations are less well known than the cringeworthy sayings of David Brent, the fictional middle-manager from The Office, a survey claimed yesterday...
Classic literature proved more recognisable than contemporary in only one instance. Thirty-two per cent of people knew that the owl and the pussy cat in Edward Lear's verse took "some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five pound note". But just 14 per cent knew that J K Rowling's Harry Potter caught his train to school from King's Cross station.
Telegraph | 4 February 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature
Pre-Raphaelite Vision is the first exhibition to focus solely on the deep fascination the Pre-Raphaelites had for the natural world and enables visitors to explore a whole new dimension of their work. The exhibition brings together around 150 works including celebrated paintings such as William Holman Hunt’s Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep) 1852, John William Inchbold’s Anstey’s Cove, Devon 1853-4 and of course John Everett Millais’ Ophelia 1851-2, all of which explore the scientific, religious and social culture of the age.
[I don't know whether any Lear paintings are included, but, while no pre-raphaelite himself, he was no doubt influenced by Holman Hunt in his landscape painting.]
Tate Britain | 12 February - 3 May 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, January 29, 2004
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
It's hard to share the tastes of a collector
Travels with Edward Lear - National Gallery of Scotland
AS the author of such quaintly endearing Victorian-era "nonsense" as The Owl and the Pussycat and other such silly-but-enduring rhymes, you would expect a collection of artwork by Edward Lear to reflect a particularly skewed interpretation of the world.
But not this one, unfortunately - it’s about as traditional a series of watercolour landscapes as it’s possible to imagine.
In fact, Lear did illustrate the rhymes he created, but this display shows only one particular strain of his work.
It represents the tastes of Scottish historian and art collector Sir Stephen Runciman, who passed away in 2000, and whose Lear collection was subsequently accepted by the Government in lieu of inheritance tax and passed to the National Gallery.
So what we are left with, then, is a comprehensive - but not altogether high quality - catalogue of Lear’s trips overseas during the nineteenth century.
It’s easy to see how much inspiration Lear drew from such surroundings just by looking at his range of interests - as well as being a poet, a cartoonist, and a painter, Lear included musician and traveller among his preoccupations.
Judging by these works, then, it appears that Lear saw as part of his travelling remit an obligation to catalogue some of the places and sights he saw - not bad work if you can get it, considering many of the sun-kissed hillsides and beaches on show here. But Lear saw himself chiefly as a painter of oils, and it was these which he expected to be able to sell and live off.
Therefore, a lot of these watercolours are pen drawings, lightly coloured and with little scribbled notes on them as a reminder of topographical details when it came to painting the real thing.
A quote from Runciman, at one point, expresses the irony of what eventually happened, however, with collectors in the early twentieth century doing a brisk trade in Lear watercolours, and all but letting the oils stagnate. You can only assume they were getting them on the cheap, though, because there’s very little here to actually enthuse about, never mind get excited.
Of the 34 works which formed the bequest, 20 are on display. The first of these is also the first piece which Runciman bought, a half-formed sketch of Kinopiastes, Corfu. For sure, it gives a certain air of the locale, while the sketched topography is precise enough. It’s the half-finished element which grates - presumably only collectors could get excited about this because it’s a work in progress.
There are plenty others like it, like Potamos, Corfu and Metzovo. Again, they may have brought Runciman no end of enjoyment, but not to the casual observer.
A sketch of Mount Athos from near Niacoro, meanwhile, is described as "undoubtedly one of the most charming of all (Lear’s) watercolours from the Runciman collection" - presumably only to someone who’s charmed by a box of Ferrero Rocher and a bunch of daffodils, because this near-monochrome clump of trees is not a patch on Lear’s complete work.
The exhibition does also contain a handful of finished watercolours, and they really do have a certain charm. The individually-titled Suli, Marathon and Plains of Canea, Crete and Sparta are lovely, blending blue mountains, white sky and lush green grass to gorgeous effect.
If only the whole display had been like that - but then, there’s no accounting for the tastes of a collector. [DAVID POLLOCK]
Scotsman.com News | 13 January 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Monday, January 12, 2004
Exhibition shows more watercolourful side to Edward Lear
EDWARD Lear is best known as the writer of much loved nonsense verses such as The Owl and the Pussycat, but a new Edinburgh exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland aims to showcase his legacy as an inspired Victorian artist.
Travels with Edward Lear: Watercolours from the Runciman Collection contains 32 watercolours by Edward Lear (1812-1888) and opens on The Mound. The watercolours have come from the estate of Sir Stephen Runciman (1903-2000) and were accepted by the government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Gallery of Scotland last year. These particular works are all depictions of sites in the eastern Mediterranean that Lear visited during the 1850s and 1860s and provide insights into the pre-occupations of one the most engaging of Victorian travellers.
Christopher Baker, the chief curator for the National Gallery of Scotland, said Lear’s prowess as an artist was often overlooked.
He said: "Lear is best known as a writer of nonsense poems, but even The Owl and the Pussycat he illustrated beautifully himself.
"He started drawing commercially from the age of 16 and when he reached 25 he turned to landscape painting and spent the next ten years in Rome refining his skills.
"Aside from publishing travel books he was even invited to give a series of 12 drawing lessons to Queen Victoria," said Mr Baker. "This exhibition focuses on his travels around Greece and surrounding islands which he felt was a part of the world artists had yet to do justice to at the time.
"He engaged very directly with the stunning landscape around him especially in places like Corfu and once famously continued on a climb to paint Suli, on mainland Greece, when his canteen of materials fell over a steep cliff after his mule stumbled on a narrow path."
Scotsman.com News | 12 January 2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Monday, January 12, 2004
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Dr. Seuss: Way past silliness
Though he died in 1991, Seuss seems more popular than ever. 'The Cat in the Hat' is now a movie. Thanks to the publicity from the film, the book has returned to the New York Times best-seller picture book list.
The U.S. Postal Service is canceling stamps with Cat in the Hat marks. And it has commissioned a new Seuss stamp to be issued March 4, as the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of Seuss' birth.
Now you can add a new book to the list --'Dr. Seuss: American Icon' by Kansas State assistant professor of English Philip Nel...
Dr. Seuss, Nel said, is arguably America's most famous poet.
"If you quote a line of Seuss verse to someone they could not only tell you who wrote it, but probably recite some of their own," he said.
For example:
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-Am
I do not like green eggs and ham.
Seuss was a genius at playing with words. With his deceptively simple rhymes he bent the language to suit his whims by coining new words. He did nothing less than change the way we use words.
"He invented the word nerd," Nel said. It appears in "If I Ran the Zoo" in 1950.
In "The Lorax" he seamlessly weaved in the words snarggled, cruffulous and smogulous in the span of three lines.
"If you think of Seuss' legacy it's to be creative," Nel said. "To think outside the box. That's part of his lasting appeal."
The Wichita Eagle | 01/04/2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, January 04, 2004
Dr. Seuss: Way past silliness
Though he died in 1991, Seuss seems more popular than ever. 'The Cat in the Hat' is now a movie. Thanks to the publicity from the film, the book has returned to the New York Times best-seller picture book list.
The U.S. Postal Service is canceling stamps with Cat in the Hat marks. And it has commissioned a new Seuss stamp to be issued March 4, as the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of Seuss' birth.
Now you can add a new book to the list --'Dr. Seuss: American Icon' by Kansas State assistant professor of English Philip Nel...
Dr. Seuss, Nel said, is arguably America's most famous poet.
"If you quote a line of Seuss verse to someone they could not only tell you who wrote it, but probably recite some of their own," he said.
For example:
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-Am
I do not like green eggs and ham.
Seuss was a genius at playing with words. With his deceptively simple rhymes he bent the language to suit his whims by coining new words. He did nothing less than change the way we use words.
"He invented the word nerd," Nel said. It appears in "If I Ran the Zoo" in 1950.
In "The Lorax" he seamlessly weaved in the words snarggled, cruffulous and smogulous in the span of three lines.
"If you think of Seuss' legacy it's to be creative," Nel said. "To think outside the box. That's part of his lasting appeal."
The Wichita Eagle | 01/04/2004
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, January 04, 2004
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Green eggs and subversion
Dr. Seuss. Even his name is a mystery. We all know the characters he created: the Grinch (which he claimed was a self-portrait), Horton the Elephant, the Star-Belly Sneetches, the Whos and, of course, his most famous creation, the Cat in the Hat, who springs to the silver screen across North America this weekend in his newest, Mike Myers incarnation.
But who the deuce was Seuss? Tell me, oh tell me, oh tell me, by Zeus!
I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, by Zeus, in a way that I pray will be not too abstruse.
The Globe and Mail | 23 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, November 23, 2003
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Carroll birthplace put in trust's care
THE Cheshire birthplace of one of England's finest authors and academics has been handed over to the protection of the National Trust.
Lewis Carroll was born and raised at Daresbury Parsonage, which lies in a corner of a field two miles outside the village.
The double-fronted building had a lobby, parlour, study, schoolroom and seven upstairs rooms, but was destroyed by fire in 1891. The original foundation footprint and a well, however, are still preserved.
Now the Lewis Carroll Birthplace Trust, which has run the site for 11 years, has gifted it to the charity to ensure its future is secured.
ic CheshireOnline | 11 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, November 22, 2003
Carroll's photos hint at deeper childhood wonderland
Lewis Carroll is best known as the author of the Alice in Wonderland books, but the shy, stammering Oxford mathematics professor, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, was as much an accomplished photographer as he was a writer. 'Dreaming in Pictures,' now on view at the Art Institute, presents 76 of the more than 3,000 photographic images Carroll produced in his life. Dating from the 1850s through the 1870s, the photos are a stunning glimpse of Carroll's take on childhood, and all the more interesting to anyone familiar with the Alice books.
Chicago Sun-Times | 21 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, November 22, 2003
Friday, November 21, 2003
Kitty Litter
At one point in 'The Cat in the Hat,' the Cat, played by Mike Myers, is mistaken for a pinata by a group of children at a birthday party. One by one, they line up to smack him, and the scene culminates with a husky lad swinging a baseball bat directly into the unfortunate feline's cojones.
That's a remarkably precise metaphor for what this movie does to the memory of Dr. Seuss. If the producers had dug up Ted Geisel's body and hung it from a tree, they couldn't have desecrated the man more.
The big-screen 'Cat' represents everything corrupt, bloated, and wrong with mainstream Hollywood movies. It takes a slender toddler-classic about the joys of anarchy -- a 10-minute bedtime read at best -- and pumps it into 73 minutes of state-of-the-art vulgarity. It lets a pampered star get away with doing Austin Powers in a funny suit. It substitutes belches, farts, and splattery computer-generated effects for the good doctor's low-tech whimsy, and it makes sure there's enough product placement and soundtrack tie-ins to profitably extend the franchise well into next year.
Boston.com |21 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, November 21, 2003
Thursday, November 06, 2003
The Owl and the Pussy-cat
Peter Martin has created a beautiful set of animated illustrations for the best-known of Lear's poems. Take a look!
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, November 06, 2003
Charles Causley
Charles Causley, who died on Tuesday aged 86, was among the most important British poets of his generation.
Causley came to Westminster Abbey - once - for a ceremony, with appropriate music and readings, to unveil a stone to Edward Lear. 'That was very nice,' he remarked. 'If church were always like that, I might come more often.' He was the most compassionate and least sectarian of poets, and much loved by his fellow practitioners. Philip Larkin respected him, and John Wain would speak of him with affectionate wonder.
Telegraph | 6 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Thursday, November 06, 2003
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
The Medieval Bestiary
Here begins the book of the nature of beasts.
Of lions and panthers and tigers,
wolves and foxes, dogs and apes.
~ Aberdeen Bestiary
I seldom recommend whole sites in this page, but this one deserves a careful exploration. You will find detailed descriptions of several manuscripts, a list of the beasts (many fantastic but all with fantastic descriptions) with lots of pictures and a bibliography. If this is not enough, you can download pdf editions of old texts about bestiaries.
posted by Marco Graziosi Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Monday, November 03, 2003
Inbal Pinto
Inbal Pinto's latest show, Boobies, creates a world in which characters from Edward Lear and Mervyn Peake might happily meet. On a beach sown with blue seagrass, a dropsy-bellied patriarch wages war against a sinister emerald-bearded merman. A giant warrior queen drops fledgling soldier chicks from beneath her crinoline skirt. A chorus of blue-feathered jesters dance beneath a rust red sky, and the cast of surreal cross-breeds is completed by a pair of top-heavy dinosaur fowl and a trio of a slutty cabaret songbirds.
Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | 3 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Monday, November 03, 2003
Sunday, November 02, 2003
Foreign resident publishes book
Minster Giovanna Debono was the guest of honour at the launching of A Pomskizillious Recipe Book by Susan Lowe, last Sunday.
After congratulating the writer, Minister Debono expressed her hope that other foreign residents in Gozo would take up a familiar inspiration to promote the island on different levels. She also thanked the foreign residents who have collaborated throughout the years to contribute towards the improvement of life in Gozo.
Inspired by Edward Lear, Ms Lowe noticed that the 'writer of Nonsense verse' repeatedly mentioned food in his writings and decided to collect as much material as possible which led her to research collections in the UK and USA. Edward Lear was fascinated by Gozo and described it as pomskizillious, one of his self-invented words. This inspired Ms Lowe to entitle her book A Pomskizillious Recipe Book, which was published on the tenth anniversary of the Pomskizillious Museum of Toys in Xaghra.
The book, which contains reference to writings about Malta and Gozo, is available from the museum. All proceeds are being donated to a fund for the environment in Gozo and Malta.
The Times & The Sunday Times, Malta | 2 November 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, November 02, 2003
Friday, October 31, 2003
Edward Gorey's Haunting House
Just in time for Halloween, a pictorial peek at the eccentric, ramshackle Cape Cod residence of the late artist and author Edward Gorey, master of the macabre.
washingtonpost.com | 30 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 31, 2003
So this is what Gorey sounds like
Tiger Lillies, with the Kronos Quartet, bring the artist's macabre mirth to the stage in a brilliant show.
Fire, smoke and ghoulish light provided the atmosphere outside Royce Hall on Tuesday. Fire, smoke and ghoulish light also provided the atmosphere inside the hall Tuesday night. An ashen, grotesque, Victorian-clad singer jabbered, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" in the crowded theater. "I like burning houses down," he sang with sullen cheeriness. "Start a fire," he raved, his voice leaping like falsetto flames, like a heroic Handel countertenor gone mad.
No question, this was in appalling taste. No question, it was also a brilliant performance. And no question, it was funny. A mostly young audience's laughter was nervous at first, but as the song got more outrageous, the laughter loosened up.
Was this catharsis or callousness?
Indeed, the string of no questions generated a string of questions, of moral dilemmas. Gallows humor is always nasty business, so why is it OK sometimes and not others? Isn't it even worse when it is about the other guy rather than about you? Does anybody not love the macabre mirth of Edward Gorey, that master illustrator of children dying horribly? Whither Halloween while Southern California burns?
The sullen singer was Martyn Jacques, mastermind of Tiger Lillies. The creepy three-piece British cabaret cult band — creators of last year's delightfully sordid puppet-show sensation, "Shockheaded Peter" — had returned Tuesday to venerate Gorey in concert as the UCLA Live Halloween offering. And this time, Tiger Lillies had the Kronos Quartet in tow.
In 1999, Gorey heard a Tiger Lillies recording and wrote the musicians to tell them that he thought they were the cat's pajamas and that he would like to collaborate with them. He then sent along a crate full of unpublished stuff.
Gorey died just as Jacques planned to fly to Cape Cod to meet with him. The material in the crate became the basis for "The Gorey End," 13 songs about hapless victims like the Hipdeep family, whose year begins with Cousin Fred found in the attic dead and ends when Amy's luck is rotten, as she loses her voice singing "Die Frau Ohne Schatten."
A master of overstatement, Jacques — accompanied by drummer Adrian Hughes and bassist Adrian Stout — shuffles on stage, his face in white paint, a porkpie hat over his balding head, a long, thin braid of hair in back
reaching his waist. His expressions are a language of grimaces. His voice, spoken and sung, remains in the strained soprano range. His enunciation is clipped and proper. He alternates between listless piano, listless accordion and listless ukulele. He is Queen Victoria's nightmare.
Each Gorey song is a miniature vignette of doom. There is the besotted mother of Florabelle, the girl ripped to pieces by a pack of wild dogs. A chandelier weeps every time a waltz or tango is played. Omletta Sniggles found Jesus on her windshield, made a fortune from the miracle, built a house with a smile, carpeted it in a shaggy pile — and died.
Sung deadpan — the controlled violence usually remaining just under the surface though occasionally breaking out in hilarious hysteria — these songs are simple musically but tell their tales tartly.
The Kronos provided atmosphere, playing a lot of tremolos. The irony here was that this hip quartet acted as musical straight man, one more Victorian ornament in a grotesque entourage.
A 45-minute song cycle, "The Gorey End" was preceded in the first half of the concert by short individual sets from Kronos and Tiger Lillies.
Kronos' four selections began with its delectable arrangement of an old Bollywood number, "Tonight Is the Night," and concluded with a rhapsodic piece, "The Fly Freezer," written for the quartet by the Icelandic pop band Sigur Rós.
Tiger Lillies ended its four numbers with its ecstatic call to burn the
house down, tapping directly into the same troubling fascination that keeps our eyes glued to the extraordinary pictures of raging infernos. We are rotten to the core, the band tells us, and there is nothing to be done about it.
Calendarlive | 30 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 31, 2003
Sunday, October 19, 2003
Telling tales is a treat for all children of all ages
... Rick Huddle steps up to recite Edward Lear's rhyming story 'The Dong With a Luminous Nose.' The words belong to Lear but the telling is all Huddle, a mix of pantomime, vocal changes and silly faces that make Lear's strange creature seem to appear.
The Oregonian | 18 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Sunday, October 19, 2003
Friday, October 17, 2003
Rose-Red City Carved From the Rock
In 1812 a Swiss-born, Cambridge-educated linguist named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt passed through the city en route from Syria to Egypt. He spent an uneasy three days there, unwelcomed as an outsider by the inhabitants, and published an account of it in his book, 'Travels in Syria and the Holy Land.'
The book sparked new interest in Petra, and more than 2,000 other Westerners found their way there during the rest of the 19th century, drawn in part by its Holy Land location. Among the visitors were the American artist Frederic Edwin Church and the English painter and rhymist Edward Lear."
New York Times | 17 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Spike's sad sharp edge
Those who grew up on The Goon Show will see him as later generations saw Monty Python - as the one who made sense by failing to do so, the great anarch who gave form to a sense of all-encompassing absurdity. In fact, it makes more sense to see him as a culminator - the last of the great writers of a style of nonsense produced uniquely by the British, whose provenance died with the empire from which it sprang...
The Goons capped off a tradition that stretched from Lilliput to Edward Lear, and they more or less finished off Milligan as well.
www.theage.com.au | 18 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
The Limerick Challenge
To mark National Poetry Day, you are formally invited to join the Magazine's Limerick Challenge.
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | 9 October 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Nailing Spike [Milligan]
The combination of Spike, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, with help from deep-dish subversives emerging from their cocoons in the BBC, created an explosion of verbal anarchy that nevertheless flowed from a tradition, combining music hall with Lewis Carroll and the nonsense prose and poetry of Edward Lear. Carpenter does not make enough of this last influence, and a comparison of Lear's and Milligan's awkward trawl through life could have proved fascinating.
Guardian Unlimited Books | 20 September 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Celebrity voices on charity CD
Les Barker, 59, who lives in Bwlchgwyn near Wrexham, has released a poetry CD entitled Guide Cats for the Blind, to raise funds for the British Computer Association of the Blind.
His style is in the genre of nonsense verse, similar to that of Edward Lear, author of the Owl and the Pussycat.
BBC NEWS | 16 September 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Anyone for Tennyson?
The Queen's residence at Osbourne helped make the Isle of Wight fashionable among the cream of Victorian society: Charles Darwin, William Makepeace Thackeray, C. F. Watts and Julia Margaret Cameron, among others, all moved to Freshwater.
Of these, Tennyson was particularly close to Cameron and made frequent visits to Dimbola Lodge (her home), which is now open to the public. Rumours of an affair remain unquenched; the gate that Cameron had built at the back of her garden so that Tennyson could arrive secretly still stands.
Inside, the lodge is a shrine to the Victorian greats that Cameron photographed. More than 60 images, including pictures of Edward Lear, Henry Taylor, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Darwin, Thackeray, Watts and Tennyson are displayed.
Telegraph | Travel | 9 September 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Hamiltons sell up
Not much about Lear, but I'm trying to resume updating this blog after a long period and anything will do.
ic Liverpool | 8 September 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Friday, October 17, 2003
Monday, August 25, 2003
Sentimental journey
THE idealised landscapes and saintly children of 19th century British watercolour painters are being cast in a different light in a new exhibition at Carrick Hill.
Natural Wonders: Visions of Home and Abroad, featuring 40 rarely seen paintings from the Art Gallery of South Australia, attempts to reach beyond surface interpretations of the works...
By the 1800s most landscapes were being painted for city audiences. Ideas of national identity, travel and topography are explored, the presence of Queen Victoria looms large and the exhibition contains a sketch by Edward Lear, who taught Queen Victoria watercolour painting.
The Advertiser | 25 August 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Monday, August 25, 2003
Saturday, August 23, 2003
My Uncle Arly, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
Rather endearingly unhinged, this celebration of the work of the nonsense poet Edward Lear takes the audience on a journey through France and Italy and into places in the mind that no map could ever chart. It gets curiouser and curiouser as it creates a straitjacketed Victorian world and then shows that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
There is song, there is poetry, there is wordplay (oh for pizza in Pisa). And there are also huge puppet-like figures and some simple clowning and slapstick. Familiarity with the work of the author of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and other nursery classics would certainly be a bonus, but it isn't strictly necessary as long as you are prepared to leave reason and sanity behind and go with the flow.
A clever collaboration between physical-theatre company Hoipolloi and the children's company Tiebreak, this is one of those shows that entirely defies categorisation. It is equally suitable for adults and children, and all it requires is an audience that is prepared to embrace the absurd.
Unlike Queen Victoria we were much amused in a gently entertaining way.
Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | 23 August 2003
posted by Marco Graziosi Saturday, August 23, 2003
