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Monday, 15 May 2023

Free Project: Initial Ideas & SMART Objective

 For this project, I can do anything and at the moment I am experimenting with editing and film I was thinking about performance and film again and I liked the idea of creating an experimental/performance piece.  

I was thinking of Pippilotti Rist as her pieces were immersive and in the gallery, you really experienced her work. 


This work takes the Chris Isaask song Wicked Game and it becomes more and more histrionic as the time goes on the use of sound and music, exploring a new take on the song is a modern expressionist response.  This kind of expression in performance art and through film I want to explore further. 



In Mythic Being (1973), Adrian Piper dresses up as a man (her alter ego), and changes her race, sex, identity, and social class to see how people in the street react to her presence.  This performance really does have social importance as it explores how we do react to different people in the street everyday.  Piper also acted as the man and exhibited male behaviour (such as ogling women) 

I like the idea that the performance can have a real effect on the viewer and make them think and question their own beliefs and ideas. 

In my own work for this project I am thinking may make an experiential film, I still can't help but think of Chris Marker Sans Soliel as I am still interested in memory and remembrance and would like to work on this further in my own work.




References

Mythic being (1973-1975) (no date) Adrian Piper and Identity. Available at: https://adrianpiper.weebly.com/mythic-being-1973-1975.html (Accessed: 15 May 2023). 

Book of Lost Things III: Development

 I continued to write my work and I am in the process of drafting and redrafting second and third chapters


Professor Zimmerman: Chapter Two

Professor Zimmerman: Chapter Three


I also worked on the front and back covers - used the image that I had developed in class and recreated this on Blurb 


I then stated to layout the pages and proofread and edited these pages as I went along, due to the tight timeframe. 












The pages were working well and I have to now just complete Chapter Three and write an Afterward to complete this short foray into Zimmerman's diaries.  This is not the whole story, it is just a snapshot of a whole and links with the stories of Milk and Honey which I think it does quite well.  I also like it that I don't have to answer all the questions in the story and that I never reveal the miracle that Zimmerman has witnessed. 








Sunday, 14 May 2023

Book of Lost Things III: Images for Front Cover & Practice

 I began looking for front cover images that were copyright free.   Here are a selection I chose.  I quite like the first one however I think it is not interesting enough for a front cover image..


Batik from Pexels 

This image below I think may be a good image for inside the book but I would need to distress this image more and make it look like an older photograph

Vanya from Pexels

Again, this would be a good image for inside the book as it matches the look I am going for for these images. 



I don't think I actually like this image below at all!



I do very much like this image below and could be a very good one to use, I will think about this one as a possible. 




This is my favourite image and the one I will be using today to practice a front cover.





I opened Photoshop and created a canvas by clicking on New and then print in the dialog box I chose A4 as my book will be around 6 x 9inches.  I chose a white background as I wanted to fill the page with my image. The resolution was 300dpi as I wanted this to be high quality for printing.


I then clicked on open and opened the image from my desktop that i had downloaded from Pixabay.  I then added selected the image and copied and pasted this into the canvas.  I changed the image to black and white by clicking on Edit, Mode and then grayscale.


I then clicked on Text in the left hand menus and changed this to Book Antiqua and changed the size appropriately to fit in the title and my name. 


This is the final cover -I actually really liked this image and want to use this in my final book 


Monday, 8 May 2023

Professor Zimmerman: Drafts/Redrafts

 I began to put my work together and I have redrafted the timed exercises form class  I did this after I created an introduction which gives a clear Idea of where the book is heading. After thinking about how other diaries begin I felt an introduction was essential and I liked the idea that the diaries were stolen by a former student. 



Professor Zimmerman: Introduction

Professor Zimmerman: Chapter One


I began then to put the book together on Blurb, I set up a trade book as previously and started to add the beginning pages










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Armadillo: William Boyd



 I chose to look at the  writing in Boyd's Armadillo as I must have read this book at least four times, I like the set up Lorimer Black is a Loss Adjuster with a nightmare boss called Mr Hogg, the book begins with Lorimer finding a hanged man in a burnt out warehouse full of mannequins, Mr Dupree, who he was about to offer a suitcase full of cash to settle his possibly bogus insurance claim. Lorimer has always had sleep problems and goes to a sleep clinic and also, my favourite part, he writes a diary called; The book of transfiguration, which is why I am looking at it here. 


'117. The First Adjust.

The first adjust was at a shoe shop in Abingdon whose stock had been ruined as a result of a burst water pipe, inundating the basement, unnoticed over a bank holiday weekend.

How did you know the owner was lying? How did you know that the grief and handwringing was a sham? Hogg said later it was pure instinct.  All good loss adjusters, Hogg said, can spot a liar at once because they understand, at a fundamental level, the need to lie.  They may be liars themselves - and if they are they are excellent liars  - but it is not necessary. What is necessary is this understanding of the philosophy of the lie, the compulsive urge to conceal the truth, its complex grammar, its secret structures....

'How do I know you just didn't turn your hose on the rest of the stock that weekend, Mr Maurice? It seems tremendous damage for one burst pipe?'

It is the quality of the rage that gives them away.  The rage is always there, it always erupts, and Mr Maurice's rage was impressive, but something about the pitch and tone of an indifferent liar's rage rings false, troubles the inner ear, like the whine of a mosquito in a darkened bedroom, unmistakable, unerringly disturbing.

The Book of Transfiguration'   (Boyd W. 1998:129)

The book of transfiguration does reveal Lorimer himself and his thoughts as all diaries do and I chose this extract as Boyd states that; 'Lorimer's life is in a way a kind of lie, he's created this carapace around himself and slowly but surely in the course of the novel it begins to fall apart and reveal the man beneath." (Mansfield, 2020) Looking at the writing here the way that this has been written uses recount, self questioning and answers and then Lorimer's own thoughts and philosophy which is beautifully written. If we look at how the commas are used here to consider Mr Maurice's reaction to the accusation that he is a liar, give a pace and forward motion that is urgent and insistent. 

Bernstein (New York Times) considers this one of the novels that is part of the 'globalisation' of British novels, Boyd has used Lorimer as a character as; 'Lorimer Black is the son of an immigrant family. His original name was Milomre Blocj (an anagram, OK? And the family is insistent on a dot below the c and a silent j).' (Boucher, 2001).  Bernstein also reflects that 'The multiculturalism of modern Britain -- and of London especially -- has become a staple of British fiction and has supplied it with new subjects and new energies.' (Bernstein, 1998), it could be argued that we have gone so much further now as this was written in 1998, decolonisation and the reimagining of the English canon of literature and what we teaching schools and universities have now evolved tremendously.  Here, Lorimer's origins are re-imagined, and reconfigured by himself, he tries to construct a new self and considers very precisely how to do this through the way he dresses, speaks and acts throughout the novel, he collects armour but his own armour is through his new modern day persona that he has created. The name of he book does encapsulate the idea here and Boyd states;  'The Spanish word armadillo means 'little armed man' they saw these strange creatures running around and they look like they are wearing armour, so the name stuck' (Mansfield, 2020) 

The Book of Transfiguration in terms of writing is a fantastic work to consider how writing works in diary form. Boyd created a very specific and personal diary for Lorimer, through Professor Zimmerman's diaries I intend to do the same however I think they may have more in common with The Smoking Diaries as Zimmerman does like a little rant!  

'Yesterday, rudely interrupted when writing by the stupid telephone, the Dean had called me, at home!  Unbelievable!  There is no peace from that man he wanted to know what I would be contributing to the termly staff meeting and how it would be interactive so that the staff would engage, he let the word linger for what seemed like hours.  I lit a cigarette and considered the best possible ways of killing him.' (Van-de-Velde Z. 2023) 

Here is an example from my own writing and here I use commas to to make a point. I consider this almost like jabbing someone in the chest with a finger; stupid telephone (jab) called me (jab) at home (jab)!  I like the pace here and the insistence and in Boyd's writing there is an unravelling of truth, of story that I want to capture in my own writing, I say unravelling as in this book it does do that. I will end on Bernstein's words as this does encapsulate much of my feeling towards this work;  '''Armadillo'' is full of loose ends, unsolved mysteries and red herrings. But it is also charming, unsettling and sneakily, serendipitously profound.' (Bernstein, 1998)


References 

Boyd W. (1998) Armadillo, Penguin Books, London.

Boucher, C. (2001) Observer review: Armadillo by William Boyd, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/sep/02/features.review3 (Accessed: 08 May 2023). 

Bernstein, R. (1998) New York Times Article Archive, The New York Times (Archive). Available at: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html (Accessed: 08 May 2023). 

Mansfield, P. (2020) Insurance covered christmas special – a look at armadillo (with William Boyd), RPC. Available at: https://www.rpc.co.uk/perspectives/insurance-and-reinsurance/insurance-covered-christmas-special-a-look-at-armadillo-with-william-boyd/ (Accessed: 08 May 2023). 

Timed Writing Exercise: Continuing my book - Professor Zimmerman's Diaries

 Wednesday

Yesterday, rudely interrupted when writing by the stupid telephone, the Dean had called me, at home!  Unbelievable!  There is no peace from that man he wanted to know what I would be contributing to the termly staff meeting and how it would be interactive so that the staff would engage, he let the word linger for what seemed like hours.  I lit a cigarette and considered the best possible ways of killing him.  Death my lawnmower, falling out of the staff room window (while have an experiential moment with tears welling up in his eyes!), he has actually cried in a staff meeting and then 'shared' some painful illness that his son had suffered, and his terrible time in the hospital.   In a staff meeting, really, God, I hate oversharing! I really don't need to know the inner feelings of my work colleagues. 

Well, rant over, I will calm myself to tell you, my imaginary reader, more about my young student, Honey Devlin.  This boy, this scruffy urchin, is a most important find, I would go as far to say THE most important find.  There he was in the tutorial chair (it is a special chair, purple, worsted, and has housed the bottoms of students for decades)  picking nervously at the threadbare arm when suddenly, as if the courage has just entered him like a spirit, he leans forward and says: 'I need to tell you a true story of a miracle, and how we must pursue an investigation into the proving the miraculous without delay.  I have proof, this is not a joke and I am not a spiritual person.  This miracle will change the course of everything.' Of course, at first I laughed, he's eccentric, I liked him.  But he appeared deadly serious and not a religious nut at all.  In fact by the end of his story I understood why he wanted to pursue this academic path, as he truly believed in academia itself. I was so taken aback I agreed to a strange meeting with him, which was to take place at Best Buy the local electrical store on its last legs on the edge of town. I was to meet him there at 7pm, well the day just took a far more interesting turn that expected!  


Thursday, 4 May 2023

Simon Gray: The Smoking Diaries

 I read The Smoking Diaries many years ago and I was very taken with them, I did not know Simon Gray but a friend had recommended the book and it really was a joy to read.  Gray was an English playwright and, wrote around 30 plays in his lifetime, was born in Hampshire in 1936 and died in 2008, not long after these diaries were published. He also taught English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. He loved to smoke, drink, and to write.


 The Smoking Diaries, Diski states that you can; 'take Simon Gray's diaries for just what they seem to be: a grouchy-hearted, grimly comic rant against the world by a playwright in his mid-60s who finds himself neglected by the modern theatre' (Diski, 2004).  It is a man getting older and as all of us get older the world becomes a place we less and less understand as it moves forward and we are still stuck in our youth (in our head).  the book begins with Gray lamenting how he hates Christmas as this seems to be now the time that those he loves die.  This is the other thing with age you begin going to more funerals than weddings or christenings. 

Grays's diaries are obviously highly edited and written with a reader in mind, Diski argues that; 'I'm inclined to reject the innocence of the diary form, especially this elegant and carefully crafted version of it. There are those who say that all fiction is autobiography. I'm of another party, the one that says all autobiography is fiction.'  (Diski, 2004).  This is a highly crafted book that uses the diary form well and the reason I wanted to discuss it here.  Gray has elevated this with a fine balance where the reader feels that they are intimately involved (as one should in a diry) however it is clear that Gray is also not giving anything away that he has not as Diski states fictionised to an extent.  This has been beautifully done here.  There is a pace to the writing that moves the reader with the sentence here is an example; 

'The rehearsal room is in a church hall off Kensington Church Street and actually within walking distance of here - not that I actually walked it, Victoria drives me, or I take a taxi.  It's a large handsome room on the first floor and I can smoke in it.  I sit on a chair beside another chair with an ashtray on it, and watch the actors, watch Harold [Pinter] at a long table directing the actors, watch and watch, sometimes saying something, but often not.' (Gary S. 2006:139)

Here I am transported immediately to the kind of rehearsal room that all actors are used, the community hall in the church, when I was younger I loved to write and direct plays, I acted in some but I think I much preferred directing.  I imagine here being in Kensington in London and walking the street, getting a taxi through the streets of London a good hansom cab.  the joy here of smoking inside is terribly bad now but I also used to enjoy this pleasure.  I can imagine the wooden chairs lined up to watch the rehearsal, quietly.  With writing you must make the reader connect to the scene and Gray does this perfectly here, it brings back to me my own memories and that is possibly why I enjoyed this, like sitting in your favourite chair, the familiarity, the comfort, is always a joy.  The use of commas gives the pace to sentences, they help you breathe and pause within the text, which gives you time to ruminate on the scene presented and the feeling of the moment he describes.


My lesson is about to begin but I will be returning to this post!



References

Diski, J. (2004) Review: The smoking diaries by Simon Gray, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/10/highereducation.biography (Accessed: May 4, 2023). 

Gray S. (2006) The Smoking Diaries, Granta, London

Gray, S. (2014) Playwright, diarist, novelist and screenwriter, Simon Gray. Available at: https://simongray.org.uk/ (Accessed: May 4, 2023).