BLACK HISTORY MONTH LAUNCH EVENT at THE CITY CHAMBERS

GARA , thats the Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance , had a do at the vastly impressive Victorian Masterpiece that is the Glasgow City Chambers.The Home turf of the Lord Provost and Glasgow City Council and lurid corrupt venal politicians.

Entering into the Grand Front Door opposite the cenotaph in George Square one is immediately struck by the imperious array of textures of marble of many hues and the redblock sandstone full size statues holding aloft the many grand icons of domination and symbols of the unchallenged confidence of empire , a perfect place corrupt venal politicians to hide behind a cloak of respectability.Look up and you see shimmering mosaics and white and ishfahani turquoise offsetting the austere Victorian hardbuild rock with the vibrancy of imperial Pompeii lushness.Look slightly around and come into view an elegance one finds in the Venetian Quarter of Galatasary District of Istanbul.Look to the other side and you see the Ochre textures you find only in Rome , yet made of solid marble , giving a perennial continuous feel to the exuberant ebullience topped , yet again , with an almost musical counterpoint of a domed roof interspersed with a blue one only find in the finest Chinese pottery.And yet you realise you have merely entered the Reception waiting Room area where a most friendly and helpful official will take your name and direct you to the portion of the building in which your stated business is taking place.

It is no wonder that many a committed class conscience Labour Politician has entered this building , only to be taken in by the imperious and beguiling oozing of power emanating from the masonry only to become afflicted with the urge to retain this elite privilege for all time and become the very part of the establishment that the voters gave them the mandate to dismantle.

The event itself was taking place in the Grand banquet Hall , a place that is reached by several levels of grandiose fleets of pure stone steps , giving views of a different level whenever you turn from one flight to the next , with small catches of what literally become corridors of power as you rise higher and higher , you see the "Assistant to the Lord Provost" Door , eventually the "Office of the Lord Provost" Door and ultimately the massive Doors of the Banquet hall give way to an expanse the size of a modern day theatre , all round are mosaics , this time adorned with gold , that give the feel of the Great churches of the Slavic east , the centre piece is a large white background mosaic above a stage at one end of the vast hall that shows a British Regal Official receiving vast stores of gifts from a whole host of natives , no doubt grateful to the imperial British Empire for giving them the kind of civilisation that can only be appreciated by giving them vast amounts of gold;spices;tobacco and precious minerals that the indigenous lands may happen to possess.

The event itself was well hosted with full protocol being given , upto and including a gold chains of office weighed down privy convener giving the address on behalf of the Lord Provost who was clearer to busy to be present in person.We also have a delicious buffet laid on containing an array of hot and cold vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes along with copious amounts of Ginger Beer.

The one event in this years Black History Month is a lecture by the biographer of Mary Seacole ( the lady pictured above) who was around at the same time as Florence Nightingale as a nurse in the Crimea War , though she never became quite as famous.But the good news is she did receive the 2004 award for the most significant Black Person in British history and the Scottish Branch of the Royal College of Nurses are collecting funds to build a long overdue statue in her honour.

MICHAEL PALIN at The Royal Concert hall

At this moment i am currently reading Michael Palins diaries covering the years 1969-1979 called collectively the Python years.So it was a very welcome , refreshing coincidence when i got wind of an appearance from Michael as part over the ever-growing , increasingly popular Conversation Pieces.It must be over a decade this format has been gracing Afternoons at the Royal Concert Hall.The very first person i saw was the charming John Suchet ( the ITN news anchor ) who appeared twice in successive years in the late nineties promoting biographies of Beethoven.These were wonderfully relaxed lunchtime engagements , yet highly informative occasions , including exclusive first time piano performances of recently unearthed Beethoven sonatas.

Most events are held in The Strathclyde Suite , a large windowless ante-room within the Concert Hall with a capacity of about 400.This particular event was held in the Main Concert Hall itself , with a Capacity not much short of 3,000.From what i could tell it was near enough a complete sell-out.Quite an achievement for one o'clock in the afternoon.

I have recently admired Michael Palin all the more as he made what must in the field of commercial future commissions , especially from the US , risky , brave and highly commendable trip to the Palestinian Literary Festival held in Ramallah and illegally Occupied East Jerusalem earlier this year , an event in which the Israeli Army showed their true merit by storming one of the functions pointing guns at organisers;guests and attendees.it seems the Israeli Army has caught the bug of never missing an opportunity to embarrass and show themselves of in full view of the Worlds glare.

We were perched on the second tier of the arena when Michael came onto the large sofa -to-sofa setting along with the interviewer.I noticed from my birds eye view he has a very full crown of hair , a lovely brown soft chestnut colour.Impressive for a gentleman of 66ish.

The conversation , itself , revealed what is pretty apparent in the diaries.Though the career of Palin can be seen as a seamless linear path of one success after another , the diaries reveal the anxieties; insecurities ; worries ; concerns and fears of a freelancer who perpetually finds himself facing a void every time a project ends.One constantly finds in the diaries the detach from the popularity of various Monty Python activities co-insiding with the lowest ebbs of inter-relations of the individual members as they are struggling with the job (or lack of jobs) in hand.For example the timelag from the making of the Holy Grail to it being a box office smash in about 18 months.When the film is at the height of its popularity we find the Python team on the point of break-up as they have run out of fresh ideas and find their are little or no takers of the projects they are trying to proffer.We also find that Python breaks bigtime onto the US market just at the point when the team are on the verge of total collapse caused by mistrust of each others commitments to the Python project.

Palins take on The Meaning of Life does reflect what one notices in the Film itself , after the glorious successes of The Holy Grail and extraordinary achievement of the Life of Brian which were due to the team working cohesively in what turned out to be single narrative continual bona-fide films , the estranged and territorial break-up of team working made The Meaning of Life into the disjointed series of sketches , albeit some very good ones , that marked the end of the road.Michael , himself , who was always the linkman in the team , the person all the members would talk to when they would not be talking to each other , said that the team probably stuck around two years more than they should and by the end all the innovation and freshness had gone stale.

Lastly Palin talked about his own venture into projects on his own , things really picked up when he stared in the Great railway Journeys series for the BBC, though Around the World in 80 Days really sky-rocket his career into the status he enjoys today.Apparently , though he was never told this at the time , he was 4th choice for the role , behind Alan Whicker and Noel Edmonds among others.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN at THE CITY HALLS

Amazingly , this was the first time ever in Scotland we had the all time lauded classic Eisenstein film featuring the original score by Edmund Meisel written for the Berlin Performance in 1926 , a thunderous , piercing , relentless piece composed in only twelve days, about an year after the film originally come out in Moscow.

The propaganda film has achieved legendary status from many varied admirers from Goebbels to the English painter Francis Bacon.It is sometimes easy to forget in our glib times just how innovative , pioneering and emotionally sweepingly engaging it was to audiences barely prepared for such an interactive media onslaught of moving intensity.

It is a wonder to the passion and radical outpourings the film generated that it was an "X" rated film in the UK until as recently as 1978.The film was banned in many places including the US authorities fearing it would encourage rebellion in the ports and naval bases as it 'gives American sailors a blueprint as to how to conduct a mutiny'.France ; Nazi Germany and the UK until 1954 also banned the film.

In pre-Nazi Germany itself the film was banned in many places owing to Meisels musical score rather than any overt content in the film itself, this prompted Edmund to lament "This, generally speaking, is the first time that political charges have been brought against a musical composition."

Guest principal conductor Ilan Volkov expertly conduction a hard driven ; thunderously relentless piece of music with suppressed tones of the Marseillaise at points of glory in the revolutionary fervour.The New York herald tribune quite rightly described Meisels score as "powerful, as vital, as galvanic, and electrifying as the film".Once one has seen it like this it would be a disingenuous travesty to view Battleship Potemkin in any other way.Which , considering this was the first time the film has played in Scotland to Meisels accompaniment by a live Orchestra , may not be something that is seen around these parts for a generation to come.


For what its worth the full film can be viewed below):

MODERN TIMES by Charlie Chaplin

This 1936 Film was the last silent movie featuring the classic mime image of Charlie Chaplin.It was initially slated to be a talking movie until Chaplin decided the mystery and imagination would be lost.The title as well as the plot has a timeless appeal as each generation succumbs to the stress and pressures of the working experience.

The theme of Modern Life is the loss of Human Dignity to the all pervading power of the machinery of Capitalism.The characters turn into cogs in a never ending conveyor belt that never seems to lose the ability to keep on sucking the last vestiges of life , the harder the People work the faster the belt becomes.

The film has many underlying social and political themes , though the comedy is paramount at all times.One of the universal appeals of the silent mime was the accessibility to all movie-goers including the vast emigrant non-english speaking populations.This made Chaplin films instant hits not only in the US but all over the world.

Tellingly ,the only voice in the film is the bellowing of the architect running the whole show , an uncanny resemblance to a younger Roosevelt , the other protagonists are made to do with silent long suffering groaning.

A plot of this type , in the political and social climate of the time , could only have been made by an artist that was not American.The potential independence of a filmmaker that had an option to go back to the UK if things became too intense , as they ultimately did for Chaplin , could not have been forborne by a homegrown artist.Even in the late 80s we had a smaller scale , though equally instructive , example when the brilliant and penetrating Mississippi Burning was made by the British Director Alan Parker.An American director would have had a very difficult time in the pre and post production arrangements to pull off a project that asked such soul searching questions of the direction and satisfactions of the American Dream.Take for example the initial reaction to the Steinbeck classic Grapes of Wrath ( published a considerable while after Modern Times ) , it was banned in quite a number of places in the US and on two occasion copies of the Book were burned in Steinbecks home county of Salinas.

There is a very good review from the Guardian from the time the film first came to the screens.

As the review mentions the plot of the film borrowed heavily from a french Film by the director Clair , the director himself was flattered the great Chaplin copied the film , responding disappointingly when the production company sued Chaplin in the early 50s , a case that was settled out of court.

Below is an excerpt from the end of the film: Some have reflected the end has what Anthony Burgess was declare an Augustan end to the work , as opposed to a Pelaglian ending more suited to the dream turned nightmare which the pursuit of digging oneself out of debt that many today can empathise with.

The whole film can be seen in 9 parts in the youtube link below:



The official Chaplin website also has this superbly crafted tribute to the legendary Chaplin:

LETS MAKE MONEY by Erwin Wagonhofer

In this full feature length Documentary multi award winning Austrian Film Maker Erwin Wagenhoffer examines the world of high finance , from the exorbitant hubris laden attitudes of its wheelers and dealers to the wretched experiences of the people who have to bear its worst excesses on the ground.

The forthrightness of the makers and shakers of a system they clearly recognise as being unjust and repressive is quite shocking , it reminds me of the observation Solzhenitsyn made in the Gulag Archipelago about fairly intelligent and lucid individuals driven to do the most ghastly acts because of ideology.And there is no more a beguiling or tempting ideology than Full blown Capitalism.

Neo-Liberalism is self-critiqued by one of the participants as having brought about the establishment of Four goals 1) the deregulation of financial restrictions 2) the removal of all barriers to the flow of capital from one country to another 3) the circumventing of national policy to corporate global enterprise and 4) the systematic removal of trade barriers that could help local economies maximise local resources to provide vital services to the host population.

An eyeopening film that deserves all the awards and plaudits it receives.A Chilling reminder of a system that has got the world in its debt.

JOHN MARTYNS MUSIC at the GFT

From the blurb on the GFT website entry to the concert one gets an odd expectation for this memorial commemoration of the late John Martyns Music , especially information that we are to get songs written by Davy Graham , Sandy Denny and Nick Drake.

The blurb goes on to say:

"It was with extreme sorrow that we all heard of the loss of John Martyn in January 2009. His powerful and often lamenting songs, his seductive guitar style and enigmatic voice have drawn a devoted audience spanning two generations. Keith and Rick have performed hundreds of successful concerts, of both the music of Nick Drake and the poetry of Lorca, in the intimate format of voice, acoustic guitar and double bass. They were approached by countless fans of both their work and John’s, along with many venues across the country, to play some concerts of John’s music. It is with a humble heart and a profound sense of responsibility that this concert is presented."

Certainly no complaints there , makes for an evening in which the poignancy and richness of the music may be enhanced as it is deconstructed from the clutter of too many instruments.

Reassuringly on Keith James website we get a more precise picture , namely:

"For the past 40 years the ingrained body of music and somewhat tempestuous life of John Martyn OBE has been ever present in all of us who have appreciated the work of acoustic singer songwriters.

It is not surprising that a significant amount of Keith & Rick's audience, John Martyn's audience and music venues across the UK gave voice to the possibility of Keith & Rick performing concerts of his most beloved music in its original format: that of voice, guitar and double bass.

It is therefore, with the most personal respect and the humblest of hearts that this series of concerts are presented. The focus will be on the central integrity of the songs in their pure form on acoustic instruments only. Also included will be music by Davy Graham, Sandy Denny, and Nick Drake."

In his later years live performances by John Martyn were very much a hit or miss affair , depending on the various states of his tempestuous and shaky relationship with the ever empty solace found in a bottle.I had the pleasure of seeing him at the Renfrew ferry a few years back on scintillating form , one of his best performances before ill health really took the best out of him , a deep and profound mix of emotion from the very heart along with a soultouching reverie emanating from his dexterous cultured guitar.The only regret that night was he did not perform my very favourite , The Hurt in your Heart , and no wonder , it is such an emotionally draining song he himself said he could only perform it on very rare occasions , it just took so much out of him.

The Concert was a wonderful eclectic mixture of fine acoustic guitar with an evocatively haunting double bass accompaniment.

The first song was Bless The Weather:



The highlight of the evening was an acoustic version of Angeline , stripped of all the mid-eighties clutter of synths and drum machine , to bring out the depth and feeling only a live acoustic version can bring.



The evening was interspersed with beautiful musical adaptions of the Poems of Lorca , with Diamond and Going to Santiago being especially brought to a new ethereal life.You can get a little background of the eventful tragic life of Lorca in the documentary below: