OZTHOUGHTS

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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Egyptian Cats & Little Girl – Has To Be A Story Here.

I have decided to broaden my teacher’s resource offerings. Originally I intended it to be simply videos that I felt could function as a starting point for story telling in the classroom, but I quickly found that there were loads of amazing photos to be found on the net that would also function remarkably well as sort of idea kick-starters. So here is the first of these offerings that I hope you will find useful your classroom.

I have no idea what was happening here, but this image has so many elements that it has to be a good source of discussions and story telling. What on earth is that little girl doing there? Simply playing at being one of those cat statues, or is it the instant before she is shape-changed and zoomed off to a life in ancient Egypt? There are so many possibilities in this strange image – let your kids loose on it and see where their fantasy takes them.

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Do come back and let us share what your students made of this image…. Good to know what others achieve with such materials……

Like A Girl – Generate Ideas About Gender Roles In Your Classroom.

Continuing my endeavour to build up a useful teachers resource here on my blog, I now offer you a video that could well be used to spark off discussions about the role of gender in how we look at each other.

This shortish video, called “Like a Girl”, is about how western society looks at the way in which we feel girls should behave, and sensibly enough, also shows how damn foolish these preconceptions really are.

Show this video to your class, and then ask them to discuss it, and I suspect you will find that the kids for the greater part agree with what the kids in the video say. Though, you may well be surprised too by how many seem to agree that girls should behave in a “girlie” fashion….. People are odd.

A number of issues are looked at in this video, all of which relate to the preconceptions we all have about how girls and women should behave, and happily, the girls and women in the video – and several guys as well, show clearly how daft these ideas actually are.

So, here it is, do let me know if you find this a useful teaching aid or not.

https://youtu.be/XjJQBjWYDTs

By the way, the people who made this video, have a whole series of videos that will be of real interest to the girls in your classroom, , in which various aspects of being female and growing up are looked at in a straightforward manner, well worth exploring I feel.

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Videos… Great Teacher’s Resource For Story Telling.

Whilst grazing gently on my Facebook page, it dawned on me that all those videos and images that “friends” post, showing all manner of amazing things, could be a very useful resource for teachers.

Many of these videos leave one wondering what happened next, or can easily be used as a starting point for creative writing lessons. Show the class one of these videos, and then ask them to carry the story on, either in words, or in pictures, depending on the content of the video.

To get us started:

To get the ball rolling, here is a rather beautiful video of a guy blowing huge bubbles on a beach. Nothing much happens, but the ethereal beauty of the bubbles, and the kids having a ball bursting them could well give rise to some intriguing stories I feel.

Invasion of the Space Bubble Aliens…….?

Bubbles on a Beach:

And?

So, did this give rise to any ideas? I would be intrigued to hear what stories this video may have produced.

Database of Videos for teachers:

To this end, I intend to post such videos on this blog, in order to create a sort of database of videos that can be used in a variety of different ways in the classroom, each with a set of teacher’s notes to help start the thinking needed to make best use of such videos.

Saving teacher’s time:

I realise that teachers could perfectly well hunt the net for suitable videos themselves, but as the husband of a teacher, I know how little spare time teachers actually have to carry out such searches. Think about it for a minute, you have to first of all find a video that fits your needs, which entails watching many videos to find just the right one, and also to be sure that it does not contain any unsuitable images or sounds, that it isn’t too long, but equally not too short… and so it goes.. A very time consuming exercise in fact. So I hope that as time goes by and I build up a big library of links to all manner of videos this blog will become a useful resource for teachers.

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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.

So, there you go…..

Not the stuff to contemplate when you wish to be at peace with the world I would suggest.

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If you have any thoughts on the wrk of this guy, do share them with us here.

Life On The Rock And Roll Road – Part 2

On another occasion, also on the Traffic tour, but down in the south of Italy we ran into another curious phenomena of those days for the first time, the Rioting Maoists of Italy

In general Italy is a country that I am rather fond of, but as place for us to work it was really scary at that time. The Mafia controlled all pop concerts in Italy back then – and perhaps still do for all I know, and there were a large number of young people, who described themselves as Maoists (Not sure why), who felt that all such concerts should be free.. Certain lack of understanding of economics there I felt, but that is what they felt strongly about.

Anyway, this manifested itself in a sort of pre-arranged and orchestrated riot at all pop concerts in Italy at that time. So we would turn up at the venue, and the Italian Riot Police would already be there with their riot gear, armoured cars, water cannon and so on, and would be busy setting up huge fences around the venue. In due time the “Maoists” would start to gather, with their face masks, helmets and banners….

Mostly the riots took place outside the venue, as the cops managed to keep the kids away more or less. But in Naples it really got out of hand, and as the concert was moving nicely along, suddenly tear gas grenades started bursting in the hall, and as one, the entire audience whipped out gas masks, put them on and sat back to enjoy the rest of the concert. We on the other hand were not so well prepared, and had to carry on with streaming eyes and noses as the place filled up with tear gas.

Not easy.

After a bit there were a couple of huge explosions outside, shortly followed by a number of rioters rushing onto the stage, closely followed by riot cops armed with short rifles, who proceeded to beat the hell out of the kids with their rifle butts, right beside poor Stevie Winwood who was attempting to sing….

The unconscious kids were dragged off by the cops and we simply carried on….. Had no choice really.

We later discovered that the explosions were two car bombs the rioters let off outside….

Life on the road for a roadie was never dull.

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Do you have any such road stories you would like to share with us here? Do write about them and send it to me,and I shall post it.

Life On The Rock and Roll Road – Part 1

For some years I was a lighting rock and roll roadie – which meant that I worked with the stage lights used on rock and roll tours, and during the concerts, I was one of the follow spot operators.

Touring itself had its pleasant side to it, the chief being the cohesion of the roadies, we tended to become something like a small army unit, a very tight group of people, we knew we could depend on each other absolutely in all circumstances. This was pleasing to experience. The tours themselves tended to become something of a foggy experience, after being on the road for a couple of weeks with gigs almost every night tended to make us confused as to which city we were in, let alone which country. So in motorway cafes we generally ordered our food, and then simply held out a handful of mixed European currency and told the guy to take what he needed in his country’s money.

This was obviously before the advent of the Euro…. Must make life on the road so much easier!

Going across borders tended to be tedious too. We traveled in relatively large convoys of huge trucks and various crew buses and cars (Almost never with the group themselves, they generally flew from gig to gig). At every border we were of course stopped and taken apart by the Customs who were determined to find drugs on us, which they never did, for three reasons:

We all knew we would be searched thoroughly at the borders,

We actually hardly used drugs on the road, we were working to hard for that,

Any drugs there were with us ( mostly for the group’s use) were always in the TIR sealed trucks, so the border Customs couldn’t open them…

Idiocy of borders.

On a Traffic tour we experienced something totally Kafkaesque on the border between France and Spain. For once the band were traveling with us in cars. The bongo drummer with Traffic, a really nice, friendly and fine musician from Ghana had a visa for one visit to France, but when he got to the Spanish border control it turned out that his visa for Spain wasn’t valid for some reason or other, so he was not allowed into Spain.

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Motor Bikes And I – A Calm Marriage By And Large

For some reason, I always wanted to ride on motor bikes when I was a kid. No idea why this was so, as to be honest, they are in so many ways vastly inferior to cars, but they do have something about them.

My First Bike

For me it started when I was 16 – which in those days was the earliest age you could ride a motorbike in the UK. So with the reluctant agreement of my parents, shortly after my 16^th birthday I found myself the proud owner of about the smallest motorbike you could buy in those days, a BSA Bantam.

It cost all of £50, by the way.

Me on my Bantam ( No idea why the fancy costume), and David on his Tiger Cub…..

This thing with its 2 stroke 150cc engine could just about manage to achieve 70 mph downhill with a following wind.

It had a headlight that would have shamed a firefly, so at night I had to try and keep up with cars going in the same direction as I was, in order to be able to see where I was going…. Otherwise the feeble glimmer from that headlight just about allowed me to see my front mudguard. And given that she could could only just keep up with very slow cars, night-time driving was awful.

At about the same time, a good friend of mine David acquired a “real” bike, a 200 cc Triumph Tiger Cub…. Ahh.. the name alone… Tiger Cub versus Bantam…. Not happy about that.

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John Cage – HPSCHD – Roundhouse Theatre

While I was Production Manager at the Roundhouse in the last few years of the 60’s and the first few years of the 70’s, we had an amazing range of events of one sort or another, many of which made one hell of an impression on me. One of these was a most extraordinary concert of a piece by John Cage, called HPSCHD (Pronounced “Harpsichord”).

Here is a description from Wikipedia of what it was supposed to be:-

HPSCHD is composed of 7 solo pieces for harpsichord and 51 computer-generated tapes. The harpsichord solos were created from randomly processed pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gottschalk, Busoni, Schoenberg, Cage and Hiller, rewritten using a FORTRAN computer program designed by Ed Kobrin based on the I Ching hexagrams. Cage had initially turned down the commission (stating that he hated harpsichords because they reminded him of sewing machines) but Hiller’s proposal reignited his interest in the piece, which provided an interesting challenge for both Cage’s chance experiments and Hiller’s use of computer algorithms in musical composition.

Twenty-minute solos for one to seven amplified harpsichords and tapes for one to fifty-two amplified monaural machines to be used in whole or in part in any combination with or without interruptions, etc., to make an indeterminate concert of any agreed-upon length having two to fifty-nine channels with loud-speakers around the audience. […] In addition to playing his own solo, each harpsichordist is free to play any of the others.

Following the debut at Urbana, Cage acknowledged the chaotic nature of the piece and the performance, explaining: “When I produce a happening, I try my best to remove intention in order that what is done will not oblige the listener in any one way. I don’t think we’re really interested in the validity of compositions any more. We’re interested in the experiences of things.”

So now you know.

The version above is not really much like what I saw and heard in the probably better environment for such a “concert” of the Roundhouse, where there was ample room for the various stages and the public to wander from player to player at will.

But it gives at least a bit of an idea of what we experienced, even though ours went on for about 3 hours, rather than the 30 odd minutes of the one above.

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Life In The Roundhouse Theatre – 60’s Style

Life at the Roundhouse was never dull back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, as we experienced at first hand the hassles of Rock and Roll concerts and how to cope with the rather strange world of British Royalty.

As I have written, at the Roundhouse we had rock concerts each Sunday. These were quite large events, which ran from about midday to midnight, and typically had audiences of around 2000 people (we removed all the seats from the auditorium for these concerts) and of course attracted not only the main audience, but all the peripheral hangers on of the world of Rock and Roll – drug dealers, groupies, fans, fast food sellers, ticket touts and so on. Some of these were a problem for us, others not. So I thought you might be amused to read about how we dealt with some of the other groups of people who such concerts attracted.

Groupies:

As is well known, Rock and Roll attracts groupies, what might be less well known is that by and large these girls tended to be very young indeed, many were between 13 and 16 year old. Whilst my security guys on the concerts had very strict instructions not to let any of these little girls back-stage or into the dressing rooms, nonetheless, the groups themselves mostly managed to find ways of getting these girls back-stage, and other girls knew exactly how to sweet talk the security guys into letting them back-stage.

Basically what all these girls were looking for was to have sex with as many Rock musicians as they could manage, and most of the musicians were very happy to help them in this ambition. A sort of symbiotic relationship thus. By and large the actual sex happened after the concert was over, and the bands had taken their chosen girls off to their hotels with them – Back-stage at the Roundhouse was not really conducive to good sex to be honest. So one part of our post-concert work was chasing away the girls who had been rejected for one reason or another by the groups, and who were left sadly littering up the dressing rooms after everyone had gone away.

I always found this a depressing business, trying to persuade stoned and very young and unhappy (they had been left behind by the bands after all) little girls that they had to go home and try again the following week. Frequently they sort of hung on grimly in the hope that one or other musician would return to claim them, which of course never happened, so it could take a long time and a lot of hassle to get them to leave.

And as I said, they tended to be well below the age of consent, which appeared to worry no-one back then, but which I suppose is giving many an elderly Rock musicians sleepless nights now given the changed attitudes to such goings on.

Hot dog wars:

From the depressing to the ridiculous. Outside the Roundhouse during these concerts there were a group of guys selling hotdogs from carts, most of whom we knew and liked well enough, and who cheerfully gave us free hotdogs as a sort of “license” fee for setting up their carts on our property.

However, after these concerts had been running for some time, a sort of mini-mafia in the hotdog world realised that good money was to be earned at the Roundhouse each Sunday, and decided to chase off the original sellers and set up their own guys there each weekend.

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