musings – Page 5 – OZTHOUGHTS

Donald Trump – Back To 1933 It Seems

Having spent the last months watching in some amazement how the USA seems to be effectively giving Donald Trump all the support he needs in order to become President, and also having watched the slow but orchestrated development of a more and more Nazi approach to his way of doing things I am becoming deeply concerned.

For many years I was fascinated by the history of the rise and fall of the Nazi Party in Germany, and was particularly revolted by the rise of the SA who were effectively the Nazi Party’s bouncers. And I have noted the rise of a similar body of men around Donald Trump as well.

When he started to have his huge rallies, it was perfectly safe to go there as an obvious opponent of his “ideas”, and no one seemed to be in fear of being beaten up or killed for openly disagreeing with him. This has now passed, and it is increasingly dangerous to be anywhere near any gathering of Trump supporters if you obviously disagree with his ideas, or belong to one of the groups he has decided are enemies of his vision of the USA.

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How Countries Raise Their Flag – Odd

In my travels around the world I have noticed that every country has it own way of raising their national flag, and I thought it might be fun to have a brief look at some of them here. Not to make any special points about the sense or nonsense of the idea of national flags or any such thing, merely because some of the ways it is done are downright funny to watch, and other boring, and a few, a very few, deeply impressive.

In order to show you these variations, I have plundered the vaults of Youtube (Oh I so love Youtube!!!) and found some superb examples of the differing approaches to this simply, but apparently very important ceremony.

So here goes.

First we have the extremely low key approach apparently adopted in the USA. March up to the flag pole, unfold the flag, tie it on, pull it up and go home for a cup of coffee….

Next we have a video showing how the Mexicans go about raising their national flag. This is a very impressive affair. To start with they seem to have probably the largest flag in the world, it is gigantic, and is brought on-stage rolled up so it looks like an enormous anaconda, carried by a number of military cops.

We are also treated to a range of demonstrations of how silly the world’s military is when it comes to ways of walking about. Makes the Monty Python Ministry of Silly walks seem tame and dull by comparison. Here we have “normal” marching, a sort of economy sized goose step and also a sort of jerky and happily syncopated slightly stiff legged marching. And all of this to the accompaniment of a death march beat on the snare drums.

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Tanks – Fascinating Beasts

When I was much younger, I was obsessed by tanks – the military sort, not water tanks. I mentioned this in another post (link) as the reason I found myself working as a modelmaker in Amsterdam for many years.

To begin with my interest was sparked by the animal like quality of these machines, rather than the destructive potential they represented all too well, If you watch a tank moving around in the forest or mud, with all its crew safely locked up inside it, they have a seriously animal like quality about them. Obviously the animals they most resemble are dinosaurs, the larger ones who presumably also ignored such minor things as trees, smaller dinosaurs and so forth as they went about their daily business.

Like dinosaurs, tanks seem to be totally indifferent to the sort of country they are moving around in, be it mud, dust, forest, fields or whatever, all the same to them, as it must have been to the larger types of dinosaur I imagine.

This short video of a bunch of tanks training gives you perhaps an idea of what it is I mean.

https://youtu.be/sxY-3DQVPYo

If you can watch this video without thinking about the men inside those large machines, but simply watch how they move, lurching around, pushing through bushes and so on then I think you will see what I mean.

Here to give you a better idea of what I mean, are a bunch of dinosaurs doing their thing… the similarity must be obvious to you.

While I was still trying to be a sculptor, roughly between the ages of 19 to 25, I sent a lot of time attempting to get this huge animal quality of tanks into my sculptures, creating truck loads of closed steel boxes that moved around in a blind but assured fashion, but none of them satisfied me, as inevitably they were relatively small, and both tanks and dinosaurs typically weigh in at around 20 to 60 tones – rather larger than I could manage with my limited financial and physical means. Continue reading “Tanks – Fascinating Beasts”

Military Idiots – Some Truly Stupid Soldiers

While I was looking in Google Images for some photos I needed for a project I am working on, I came across this extraordinary image of a bunch of North Korean Generals, and was so taken with the sheer straight-faced idiocy of those men, I felt I had to share it with you and then add a few more weird and wonderfully silly military people doing what they do best…. Looking daft.

How on earth did they win so many medals? I have never seen people with so many medals that they need to pin them onto their pants…. And to be able to stand there with a straight face as well…. Surely they must feel totally stupid. But as you will see from the photos that I am about to add, one thing military people are very good at, is looking totally straight-faced whilst doing something or wearing something completely idiotic.

So here we go,

Firstly a couple of photos of the totally absurd dance routine that the Indian and Pakistan armies go through on their border every day as they pull the flags down at the end of the day.

And here is another one…..

Actually, this ballet is so unbelievably silly looking, I have to add a video of it, so you can really appreciate how absurd the military mind can be… Now watch these cockerels stomping and displaying at each other….

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Outings Project – Fun On The Streets

There is a rather amazing project happening all over the world just now. Called The Outings Project, it was dreamed up by a French artist called Julien de Casabianca and it is actually a very simple concept. Basically it consists of groups of people in lots of cities around the world, going to their local art museum – such as the Tate, Museum of Modern Art, Rijksmuseum or some similar, finding a painting that they particularly like, taking a photograph of it and then getting that photo blown up and printed on paper. They then go out onto the city streets, find a bit of unpainted wall, and simply stick the photo onto the wall, using wallpaper paste.

As simple as that.

Simple though the idea is, it is having a considerable effect on the cities in which it is happening, both for those doing it, and for people who happen to wander by and come across these unlikely bits of high grade graffiti.

Here are a few taken at random from all sorts of cities to give you an idea about how this project actually looks.

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Soulful Music And Amazing Images

I have just come across a video that combines two amazingly creative forces in one work of art. The extraordinary photos of Steve McCurry with the haunting Duduk playing of Levon Minessian.

Together, the overwhelmingly sad look in the eyes of most of McCurry’s subjects and the equally sad sound of that most evocative of instruments, the Duduk work together to make a document about the less happy side of humanity and life.

Occasionally among the haunted look in the eyes of most of his subjects, there comes a soul that is happy, full of joy, or a landscape that is simply peaceful and gentle, but most of the images are as the famous one of the Afghan Girl.

Along with these images, we have the music of Armand Amar, a piece called Amen Hayr Sourp (Canticle of the Trinity)

A truly heartbreaking image of a small Peruvian kid…..

Angola Minefields – Look Innocent, But Will Bite You!

While we were working in Angola a few years ago, we had friends who worked with the Halo Trust clearing landmines all over Angola. At that time (2006) there were estimated to be about 17 million of the horrible things lurking in the ground.

We were invited to visit them at their upcountry headquarters in a small town called Huambo, which had suffered very badly during the civil war, so was full of shot up buildings, burnt out tanks in back yards and all the remains of a vicious war, which after a bit of time in Angola, we were becoming all too familiar with sadly.

They decided to first take us to a large minefield that they were busy clearing on the edge of a small village nearby, so off we went to see our first minefield in the flesh as it were. When we got there we were taken to the edge of the village, where the local school had its playground and the guy in charge pointed to the grass field beside the kid’s playground and told us matter of factly that that was the minefield. Simply a large area of grass beside the beaten earth of the playground… No form of separation, walls, fences, ditches.. nothing, simply an innocent looking grassy area.

This was when we understood that actually a minefield is simply a chunk of land which happens to have landmines buried in it…. In no way special or dangerous looking. As a friend from the Halo Trust put it, a landmine is the Beast that doesn’t bark – but sure as hell can and does bite!

The thing that got me at that moment was the realisation that the kids at the school played football and ran around as kids do, right on the edge of a minefield, with no form of barrier to prevent them running into the minefield.

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Steve Cutts – A Most Extraordinary Cartoonist

I have just come across the work of Steve Cutts, a very strange but committed cartoonist and animated film maker, whose work shows a very strong involvement with the less attractive sides of our society.

As you will see from the several examples of his work I shall bung up here for you to look at, he is deeply concerned with environmental issues, social problems and the general difficulties of life.

He puts it this way: “I like to make animations about life and society in general, so there tends to be a message in most of them. The general insanity of mankind is an almost endless pot of inspiration!”

I would say that having looked at a large amount of his work, that this is, if anything, an understatement. His work is totally involved in the problems of the world in one way or another, in a very dry and succinct manner as well. One is in no doubt as to the message he wishes to impart unto us when looking at any of his drawings or animations.

Anyhow, to whet your appetite, here are a few of his cartoons, and a couple of typical videos.

Cartoons:

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The Illusionist – Tati Rides Again

I have just seen a full length animated film of a story by Jacques Tati (of M. Hulot fame) called The Illusionist, and I have to tell you it is superb!

This curious film, which was made by Sylvain Chomet, who also made that very odd animated film The Triplets of Belleville is based on a script that Tati wrote many years earlier, and was a sort of long apology to his estranged illegitimate daughter apparently.

The story line is about an illusionist whose career in the music halls of Paris is slowly but surely going downhill, as a result of which he finds himself performing on a remote Scottish island (watch the film to find the logic in this!), where he is sort of adopted by a young woman who is a cleaner in the hotel he lives in.. and the rest of the film is really about his efforts to look after her, provide for her and generally act as a father to her – no suggestion of a sexual relationship.

In January 2010, The Manchester Guardian published the article “Jacques Tati’s lost film reveals family’s pain” stating,

“In 2000, the screenplay was handed over to Chomet by Tati’s daughter,Sophie Tatischeff two years before her death. Now, however, the family of Tati’s illegitimate and estranged eldest child, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel, who lives in the north-east of England, are calling for the French director to give her credit as the true inspiration for the film. The script of L’illusionniste, they say, was Tati’s response to the shame of having abandoned his first child [Schiel] and it remains the only public recognition of her existence.

All of this is profound and no doubt intriguing stuff for film history buffs, but for the rest of us, this film can – and should – be seen for what it also is, which is a highly entertaining, very odd and eccentric animated film made for adults, that is not scary, bloody, full of monsters or in any way nasty, simply a film with likeable and understandable characters. And the most wonderful animation. None of your cheap and badly made TV animations here, but animation of the highest order. It is a real pleasure simply to watch the work of world class animators.

The animators have exactly caught the way Jacques Tati moved – his awkward leaning forward way of walking, and his well known hands high on his hips and leaning forward as he talks to people… All his mannerisms have been beautifully reproduced here…. instantly recognisable character.

You can see what I mean about both the story line and the quality of the animation in this trailer for the film.

So, if you admire the work of Jacques Tati, or simply enjoy well made adult animated films, then this is certainly a film you should see, if you can find it online or in the video stores.

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PAWEŁ KUCZYŃSKI – DISTURBING SATIRICAL DRAWINGS

I have recently become aware of the work of Paweł Kuczyński, a young and very talented Polish painter. He specialises in a very disturbing and clear headed type of satirical painting to make his points – which are chiefly anti-war, anti- capitalism and anti just about anything that contributes to making life less pleasant.

As you will see from the very small selection of his huge body of work that I have posted below, his work has a sort of clean cut, almost photographic quality, and there is really no room for misunderstanding his message in each of his paintings.

However, obeying the first rule of art that was given to me when I started to study sculpture at St. Martins School of Art many years ago, when we were told that to discuss art was the purvue of those who couldnt make it… so we were told to keep our mouths shut and simply get on with making art, and also not to insult the work of Paweł by analysing it, as his meanings are absolutely clear, I shall simply post a number of his works to whet your appetite.

If his work appeals t you, then you can find a huge amount of it online (Google images) or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pawel-Kuczynski/222849284410325).

So here goes……………………………….

Lets start with a video that shows a lot of his work.