Room 223 CX
Explanation of Images in the Previous Post
tree going up with "one undulant thrust"
(WCWs). ART Light. Photography.
2. Brett Cross of Titus books - poet and musician
Jack Ross, poet and wit (polymath) - the
James Joyce of NZ - and Hamish Dewe
now in China - poet of the great Salt days.
At the Shakespeare. ~2006. Poetics. ART. LIfe.
3. Sebastian Richard Taylor. My grandson.
Mission Bay. Personal. Origins.
Light. "The ineluctable mo..."
4. Idem.
5. Grape fruit from my tree a my kitchen
window. Origins. Family. Life. ART. Photog.
Light. The personal. "Nature"
Ontology and Phenomenology.
Note the British flag showing in
the garage window of the Maori
people next door. They also used to
have a symbol of Maori independence
They were there about 4 years but I
hardly spoke to them.
People in Auckland are becoming
increasingly paranoid. I am probably so.
NZ has one of the highest rates of violent
crime in the world. NZ and Australia
helped the US Imperialists invade
Afghanistan. Maori were somewhat disenfranchised
and driven off the land not by war as such but by
lawyers (lean solicitors) and accountants.
each is alone in the ineluctable modality of
nechednaimander and terrible are the truths
unrevealed in Albion. Life. Maoritanga. Origins.
[A]
[The shadow..." a qualm"]
[All categories]
7. Tamasin, my daughter, and Sebastian.
Family. Origins. Life. Light. Love.
Time. Philosophy. Technology. EYE.
[All categories. All is all]
8. Panmure, an Auckland suburb where I live,
showing light (the shooting light!!),
and sleek cars, and Maungarei.
Note the sleek cars, the signs,
and the eternal beauty and life-death
of all things in this picture.
[All is all] [i.e. A. Let A = All]
9. Truck resupplying outside shops in Panmure.
The truck is beside a dairy and one of the
oldest buildings in Panmure. The Indian people
in the shop speak good English and I have had
great talks with them. Note the rubbish bin
(cylindrical) and the chewing gum - flattened
as is the usual occurrence and the pits on the
ash felt. Who constructed that path and when?
The local. Origins. Photog. Light. Learning. Knowledge.
EYE. Philosophy. Ethnicity. Process. Art. ART.
10. Scott Hamilton. Blog: Reading the Maps. Political
activist, friend, poet, thinker, peripatetic,
restless, omnivorous reader of everything, editor of SALT and Brief,
Enthusiast for Smithyman and Keith Douglas and many
many others. Cricket enthusiast. Light. Knowledge.
Friends. Truth and falsity. Politics. ART. History.
Words. Light and dark. [A]
11. Me. About 1974 or so. Farmers, Auckland.
The personal. Origins. Appearance and Reality.
Family. The EYE. Fear and love. Fate. Fatus. Fata.
12. My cat Kiddeater (Tam's name.
It died tragically in 2005.
I buried it in tears. I could feel
its rigor mortis. Its whitefur was still soft.
I buried it, trembling myself*, with
sacred dignity in my garden. It is now
as it was - part of the Eternity. X.
I shook with grief - I played
Mozart's Requiem. Religion. Process. X.
The Personal. Family. Nature, technology. Dark. Death.
Music. Photography. ART. THE E Y E
[A] * Often in plays by Synge the expression
is: "Was it with himself you talked.?" Mozart. Music.
Learning and knowledge. The Spanish Tragedy.
Death. The personal. Hamlet. Art. ART.
13. Collage. Sebastian. On the RHS a painting
I did when I was about 9. They are houses
from our window in about 1956 or so. Note
the cubicality and the light and the red
tile rooves (roofs). There are also 3 images
of me. Look closely. The personal. ART.
Origins. Eros. [A]
14. Lamp reflecting in my sitting room ceiling.
many images recur this is thus like a
"musical " motif. Light v Dark. EYE.
Photog. ART. [A]
15. Myself. I am in my bathroom studying the
mystery of myself.
"I am determined to be villain, and hate the idle pleasures
of these days." These "weak and piping times of peace"...
Ego. Truth. Mystery. The Romantic Movement.
ART. Sight. EYE Light. Modality.
The Mirror. Language. Reality. [A]
16. Book case (poetry section) showing various poetry books
in my bedroom where
I sleep and write a lot. Unknown People. ART.
Poetry. Some poets include Blake, William Bronk,
Clark Coolidge (US Language poet) , Brecht, and Emily Dickinson.
ART. Poetry. Personal. The local.
ted berrigan, NZ poets Allen and Wystan Curnow, dante,
Lew Daly (a fascinating poet).
[All in All] [All is All] [All]
17. Richard Taylor. Me. ~ 1966 - 68 at Glenn Turner's house
(garden of). State house in Glenn Innes - near Panmure.
Working Class area. Glenn was my friend and rival at
Chess. Better at chess than me.
His father Mal Turner was a Marxist.
State housing area as mine is.
He attended Tamaki College also
I am holding one of his sister's children. Personal. The Local. Origins. Family.
Process. Time. Chess. Photography. ART. Politics. [A]
18. Maungarei. The crater. Reservoir to the right.
Looking toward Auckland city.
This was Maori Pa - fortification. Surrounding and on
much of the volcanic soil typical of Auckland
or "Tamaki Makau Rau" (land of one hundred lovers
(meaning very rich and fertile land etc)
Vic and I walk here most days.
Light. The EYE. Geology. The local. History. Origins.
Maori. Maoritanga. ART. Blake. Science. [A]
19. Two attractive local girls - probably Samoan - pass as
we walk up Pilkington Rd. Note the light streaks gracing
my lens. The local. Eros. "Le ra le aso." LIGHT. EYE.
Ethnicity. Photography. Origins. Ova. Time. [A]
20. Emerson's "The long shadow of Man falling across History?"
My shadow on the Tamaki estuary.
Nature. The local. Life. Science. ART. [A]
21. Two macrocarpas near the summit of Maungarei. This was used
on the cover of my poetry book "Conversation with a Stone."
Just to the right a part of the guard r l has been replaced
where a man drove his 4-wheel drive off in a suicide
or "cry for help" tragedy. He killed one of his daughters
in the attempt.
ART. Poetics. Textualisation. Life. The struggle to be.
Technology. The local. Nature. Politics. Process. Rangitoto.
Seeds. Death. Eros. [A]
22. Tree struggles sinuously and tortuously to emulate the previous
"straighter trees". This is on the side of the Panmure basin.
Formed by an eruption ~ 1200 years ago. Civilisation formed
~ 15,000 years ago. Since then there has always been an
overproduction of food and materials. The most recent system
to arise is capitalism, which necessarily creates poverty so
that the ruling class maintains control. As Orwell points
out in his brilliant political writing "1984" Perpetual War is
the jolly ticket! - as is happening now. With the Jolly old War of Terror!!
Here at the Basin the Maori
made waka - large canoes.
"Who grow the ghosts that more blood be shed."
The Odyssey. Mythology. Politics. Dehiscence. Death and life. Light.
The local. Origins. Biology. Eros. [A]
23. Beautiful Power transformer. This echoes a previous image. ~11 kV
of voltage is converted from the smaller (but with more windings) inner
coil to the smaller number (but larger in size) outer coils.
Inductance from the a.c. then creates a lower voltage ~ 240 V (RMS) for
usage in a home or commercial. Note the three large fuses and
the immortal beauty of the ceramic insulators. Light. Power.
Technology. Science. Art. ART. The local. Oil. W= I x V. Ohms'Law.
Henry. Webers. Reactance. Science. Time. Process. Learning. All.
[A]
24. Shells and green glass. The glass being of silica will become as the sand as both
are made of silicates. Shells being calcium silicates...etc. Learning. Process.
Nature. Neimande... ART.
24A. Interesting graffiti in Panmure. Art. Working Class. The local. LIGHT.
EYE. [A]
25. Mysterious spiral (another "echo") on a rock near the Tamaki Estuary.
ART. Mystery. Maoritanga. Culture. Philosophy.
Time. Process. LIGHT. Origins. Mystery. Milton. Te Kooti. [A]
26. My daughter Dionne of The Nudie Suits looking very 20s. Her picture is
on a book of modern art. My father beneath. Some of his drawings of places in
England can be partly viewed on the Reich beautiful green table cloth I bought
recently from Spotlight. Light. Small photograph of my father. My father was from
London. he was an artist and became and architect/engineer
for the Hellabies Meat Co. Personal. Death. Origins. Genesis. Adam Kadmon?
Words. ART.[A]
27. Mr. Manoah. My children's grandfather. He was half Samoan half English.
Employed by the RNZAF. Lived in Kumeu. Collected antiques and curios.
Died of cancer same year (1987) as my own father.
"Don’t leave me! No! Don’t go!" Death. Process. Life. Origins.
Family. Humour. Food. The local. Psyche & Eros. [A]
28. Photo of my father Leslie Stuart Taylor taken ca 1976. Personal. Origins.
Art. ART. LIGHT. "LIGHT!" [A]
29. Echo again. The Maori struggle for their rights. This continues today in NZ.
Politics. Truth. "Eh, by gad(d)!" !!! ART. Maoritanga. History. Truth.
Aristotle. William Morris. Eros. [A]
30. My endless book (se Brief no.?) after getting severe water damage - as it
dries parts reappear and patches of it vanish much as does all
seeming permanence or rationality or reality in the world. All decays…all dies.
There is no beginning or end only perpetual ending beginning and agonal renewals.
Life. ART. The process. ERROR. The desperate need for imperfection.
LIFE. Processional. Optics and science. Newton.
Finnegans Wake. Flow Chart by John Ashbery. [A]
31. Idem. "...silence, sky, and, are puppets of.... the babbling..." [A]
32. Tombstone. Church graveyard in Panmure. Tme. Process. Death. Decay. Hades.
LIGHT! The local. Episcopal. Fencibles. [A]
33. My son Victor. At my house. This is where I and he live. Light. THE EYE. Personal.
Politics. The State. ART. Being. [A]
34. My chessboard etc. Book on Thumb wrestling with holes for thumbs. Book about
filmmaker
Norman McLaren (mentions Len Lye -this picture echoes many things, as does
everything)
underneath a picture of man murdered by the US Imperialist fascists in Iraq.
New Zealand gave covert but very strong assistance to the US
duping people that we were somehow "opposed" to the US. We also assisted Australia
US's invasion of Indonesia and other fascist nations in the Pacific
There are no "good guys" anywhere. Note the beautifully embroidered tablecloth.
Politics. Chess. ART. Philosophy.
Ron Silliman. Death. Marjorie Perloff. Random.
Pepper. Science. Blood. Weight Loss. Some people don’t need to lose weight. [A]
35. Image of my copy of George Orwell’s great work of politics called "1984" given to
me by Leonard Priestley (yes the scientist who discovered oxygen was a distant relative).
Another echo. Given me about 1965 and read then and also recently.
Perpetual war. Capitalism (capitalism world wide = Imperialism - see Lenin) demands it
and executes it. It blurs though as the light fights the dark. Holocaust. Nietzsche. Wagner. Politics... [A]
36. Five beautiful red roofed state houses in Panmure. Light. ART. Photog. The Local [A]
37. The mother of my three children. ~ 1972.
38. Me in about 1969 or so. Taken by Dick Fowler with my Pentax
Dick was a co-founder of the PYM (Progressive Youth Movement) with Barry and Bill Lee
(who went to my School Tamaki Intermediate.
Dick is now called Rewi Kemp. Polymath. Master of none? The PYM was backed by the Communist Party.
Tim Shadbolt was around and very active but he acted more or less alone.
He was not a PYM member. Alan Brunton gets this part of history wrong that makes me think he was
a bourgeois liberal and a dilettante.
There is still from a movie done by Dick showing me trying to photograph
the police who were brutally bashing protestors at the Rogers Demonstration
(inaccurately described by Brunton in X) and this was used by Shadbolt in his book "BullShit and Jelly Beans". Shadbolt was also a very successful amateur boxer and a very brave - getting beaten up by the cops continually. He was also a brilliant orator and hundreds would gather when he began to speak (as moths drawn to a bright stick). He referred to the Western "Establishment"
as "Syphilisation".
Politics. The personal. The sixties. The seventies. Philosophy. History. New Zealand.
The Vietnam War. Apartheid. Ireland. Truth. Poetics. Other. [A]
39. Santa, my son Victor (patch (which was a useless attempt to correct a squint). Myself.
taken at Farmers, central Auckland about 1973. Xmas. The personal. ART. Photography.
The eye. LIGHT. (All categories from now to be stipulated as = to A.
40. My kitchen at my house with the famous Turner. There is a stove. A fridge. A sink. Note the
shiny and eternal plastic bags and the green linoleum. [A]
41. Me myself. My legs and feet projected toward Rangitoto. "Le la le aso" Blood. Ineluctable. Sky of blood. Unknowable. (Ha! Recall the way – in the plays of Synge people say thing such as: “And if you go to him himself he might abide to gift ye a toye or
a blessing or a look of luck, or, ah, - now the wind it rises Easterly and I an old ugly hag to be out here on the cold hard roads such as speak and whip with the winds of all Ireland with none to kill, care, or touch me sadly.” ?? ~ 2005
[A]
42. Toilet. [A]
43. My daughter Tamasin, Sebastian Richard Taylor, Ed of 'Ed Cake' and 'Pie Warmer' (musical group) -
see recent thing
by Denis Welch (the Culture Vulture) in a recent Listener. Ed's children Toby and Jim. Kite flying
on Maungarei. Food. [A]
44. Food (kumara etc) pits and other on Maungarei. Maoritanga and [A]
45. Photograph showing a wall of my room. My father's self portrait and "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror"
by the Renaissance and Mannerist artist Parmigianino - this painting was used as a starting point
for NY Poet John Ashbery's Pulitzer Prize winning book/poem “A Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (it was the main poem in the book).
Ashbery was a friend of Frank O'Hara. A poet/photographer friend of mine did the abstract
who wrote beautiful poetry. His name was Nik Owens. Sadly he died of heart failure at a relatively young age. Once he worked as bus driver.
There is a part of my collection of novels by Joyce Carol Oates.
Also some of my Scientific Book Club books ('Gorilla' by Shaffer is an excellent book about Gorillas)
Silently by Night is about bats.
A mask of myself (‘expressionist’, showing my “dark time” (1992 or so) very dark state) was done by Tamasin who lived there in Panmure until 1993 after which she went to habitate with the mother of my children. [A]
(There are many other books - many unread.)
46. The Post Office. The woman there "gives me cheek and we give each other 'arseholes' - she and others saw me
when I made an appearance in
Shortland Street (a NZ TV Soap Opera) I was a grumpy old landlord.
I am frequently seen locally. I often act silly buggers. Life is short. [A]
47. Grapefruit from my tree. Still life. Byatt. [A]
48. My kitchen [a]
49. Looking out from my bathroom window. [A]
50. A view of the Poetry section of my books. Books include poetry by such as Blake,
ted berrigan, Brecht, William Bronk, Clark Coolidge (US language poet influenced by jazz etc
(includes "Polaroid"), Dante, Lew Daly (fascinating post language poet),
Allen and Wystan Curnow (NZ poets), Emily Dickinson, and many others. Also some NZ artists. Unkown people.
Other. [A]
51. The mother of my children holding my son. X.Y. [A]
3 comments:
They are fine and finely arranged images, Richard. Since starting this blog you have showed a real flair for visual art - I guess this isn't surprising, since you were always very interested in painting, but we were used to thinking about you as a poet. It's such a pity that the cost of colour illustration is so high, because the material on this blog would make a fine book, to go with Conversation with a Stone.
Thanks Maps - my father taught me water colour techniques in about 1958 or so. I didn't pursue art as a practice - I did sporadically try to do drawings. In fact right now I have a quite few "how to" books as I believe even if one is going to use computer images etc as Richard Killeen does - for me I feel I should master (or at least get better knowledge of) drawing, and other art techniques etc (it is a matter of finding time). Photography was also an interest. My daughter also took an interest in photography (from about 1969) so one or two of the images are by her and these I have taken from other places. Most of the images are done by me - also with digital photography the possibilities are opened as one can 'doctor' images (though I sometimes only crop photographs [sometimes I do quite a lot - e.g colour, sharpening, brightness and contrast can be added etc]- there is a whole lot more I could do with more experience - knowledge of some programs etc and say with Photoshop) and others are as I take them - some of course are not mine but one has to choose what will "conjunct" with what, and so on: and they look great on this black background.
It is pity that my Blog EYELIGHT - which for me and perhaps for others is a self educating process to enhce the learning I have done in institutions such as Tech Institutes and Universities etc (learning for me never stops [I am studying Blake's "Milton" right now as well as Ulysses] and just about everything is fascinating - amongst other things - cant be seen as it is in totum as then people would see how it works how there are definite themes and structures.
The commentary above - while partly ironic - has many themes etc embedded or through it. It is laid out deliberately as if I were writing up keywords quickly for my books - as I do a lot or have done - the key words being for people to locate by subject or to cross ref. - but here there is a degree of irony etc).
Yes I would like to do book - but it is not (conceptually) finite this thing but it could be "sampled" and with finance a small number of books could be made but it will probably not ever be popular or even have many people take much interest. However it keeps me off the streets! It is my hobby!
Re the cost of colour plates etc I recall that was a theme Smithyman talked about in one of his (relatively) rambling tutorials - they were always interesting though - in 1968 when I spent one year doing an English paper..and Economics also.
In principle I agree (re "a sample" of it it could be a book).
Brief looks good - I am just starting to read David Brown's story. Good to see Morrissey there - great thing he did - and some new people.
Another point - I see visual art - any ART from in fact - in fact many things - are for me forms of language and visa versa.
Also I see poetry being just as valid as prose (for me there is no discontinuity - I agree with Bill Direen's comments about that tin his review of "Falling through the Architect" by K M Ross. And of course you write much in 'prose'. ) - I see the dictionary as a poem for example - and it can aspire to the condition of music.
As with Zukofsky "Upper limit music - Lower limit language" (placed top and bottom of an calculus integral sign in "A"
So mathematics also is (or CAN be) a kind of magical language - it can be poetry as can be a beautiful chess combination or a move in a dance; or the construction of the power system (see my transformer picture etc) or even rugby, cricket, soccer etc etc etc etc.
All interacts.
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