The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

This marvellous romantic drama directed by Peter Strickland is a cinematic masterpiece which, like great wine, is ever-maturing into a classic. Amongst its many delights is the conjuring of a bucolic  atmosphere chiefly mediated by the authenticity of subtle lighting and naturalistic set designs, without a modern contrivance or electronic device in sight. If you were a child of the 70's you might recall something strange happened in that decade. We seemed to go from subtle browns, greens, plums and ochres; earthy colours and materials in the early 70's, to a dehumanised monochrome of formica, metal and plastic a bit like moving house permanently to the Death Star. Accompanying this, a garish explosion of compensatory synthetic pop colours occurred to assault the senses (and aid the advertisers). By the 1980's it seemed the human visual design landscape had been irrevocably transformed, and if a simple natural interieur was desired, it had to be deliberately reverse-engineered, ironically out of wood-effect plastic and synthetic materials. 

The Duke of Burgundy exists in this pre-formica world where objects are naturally-derived materials; wood, stone, candles, wool, grasses, cotton, clay, ceramic, iron. Beyond that, it is a kind of imaginal world which cannot be accurately placed temporally or geographically. Although it is a British-made film, the sets richly evoke that of a pre-1970's rustic French chateaux or Italian mansion, which have a strongly European rather than British flavour. The professional and artistic interests of Cynthia and Evelyn extend to a Victorian descriptive natural history of lepidoptery, without cluttering the subject with modern technical detail. Surrounded by dusty books, brass microscopes, and entomological wall mountings, their research interest is at once a comforting retreat from the outside world, yet also a stagnating academic stricture which typifies their obsessively introspecting psychic existence.  

Although The Duke of Burgundy is often described as an erotic thriller, the kink-based relationship of Cynthia and Evelyn is artfully counterpoised to depict a formulaic sense of ennui and frustration, so it is neither truly erotic or thrilling. I can't help thinking this is a kind of anti-erotic feministic riposte to the conventional sexploitation trajectory a film like The Duke of Burgundy would take had it been produced in the 1970's. In the turgidity of the ritualised sexual encounters, the peripherality of the wandering mind and attention becomes enlivened; this only intensifies the artistic focus on lighting, opulent furnishings, the flickering of a candle. Only in this sense is the film sensual. 

In his book "A Year in the Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields", Stephen Prince describes the intimate relationships in The Duke of Burgundy as possessing a "Kafka-esque sense of unending" and, laughably, a central relationship which resembles the 1979-87 sit-com Terry and June. I would reject Prince's fancifully vacuous stream of consciousness if it wasn't for his wonderfully redeeming phrase that Duke of Burgundy creates "a particular esoteric, luxuriant, golden atmosphere and an almost fairytale-like world." Yeah, I suppose just like Terry and June. 

In his fairytale-like evocation, Price also forgets to mention the almost classically hallucinogenic soundtrack by alt-pop duo Cat's Eyes (comprising Faris Badwan and Rachel Zeffira) which greatly helps to thematically situate the film within a sensibility of dreamy European folk-imbued decadence. The other thing Price fails to pick up on is what I regard to be the principal narrative of the whole movie; and that is the suffocating sense of confinement which accompanies human life. Whether its at the sharp end of the lepidopterist's pin, a specimen being fixed under a microscope, the soulless rigidity of academic life, the tedious ritualised entrainment of sex and relationships (for example how Evelyn becomes confined to a wooden chest to fulfil her sensory deprivation fantasy), The Duke of Burgundy is a stylish but devastating excoriation of the insatiably spurious wants of the post-scarcity human condition and a gently moralising admonishment of living a life which is psychically cut adrift from the libidinal rhythms of nature. 

Shit Aurora Photos

Yo! Last night was a pretty good one for northern lights. I saw them earlier on in the year, but owing to misplaced trust in Nokia's night photo setting, nearly all of my photos turned out as grainy and dark as the bottom of an abandoned asylum sick bucket. Not so last night. I just used my usual portrait setting on the phone and the photos turned out as reassuringly amateurish as I could hope for. I did try using my Canon on timer but owing to my lack of technological aptitude (scrub that, technological interest) the results on my mobile camera were better. The aurora was mostly pink, scarlet and red but with tinges of green and on occasion quite extensive streaks arcing across the sky. It grew over the period of an hour or so and moved about much more than the one earlier in the year, eventually dissipating. Very impressive. Thank you God. 

John Burroughs: The Simple Life

I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good... I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many persons know the luxury of a skin bath- a plunge in the pool or the wave unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life - direct and immediate contact with things, life with the false wrappings torn away - the fine house, the fine equipage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free one feels, how good the elements taste, how close one gets to them, how they fit one's body and one's soul! To see the fire that warms you, or better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst, and to dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four walls, and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest, or over a wild flower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. 

From: "An Outlook Upon Life" quoted in Our Friend John Burroughs (Clara Barrus, 1914). 

The current of the lives of many persons, I think, is like a muddy stream. They lack the instinct for health, and hence do not know when the vital current is foul. They are never really well ... The dew on the grass, the bloom on the grape, the sheen on the plumage, are suggestions of the health that is within the reach of most of us. 

I would live so that I could get tipsy on a glass of water, or find the spur in a whiff of morning air. 

You and I perish, but something goes out, or may go out, from us that will help forward a higher type of humanity. 

Oh, the wisdom that grows on trees, that murmurs in the streams, that floats in the wind, that sings in the birds, that is fragrant in the flowers, that speaks in the storms - the wisdom that one gathers on the shore, or when sauntering in the fields, or in resting under a tree, the wisdom that makes him forget his science, and exacts only his love - how precious it all is!

Naturalism does not see two immeasurable realities, God and Nature, it sees only one, that all is Nature or all is God, just as you prefer ... The universe was not made, it is, and always has been. God is Nature, and Nature is God. 

I shall not be imprisoned in the grave where you are to bury my body. I shall be diffused in great Nature, in the soil, in the air, in the sunshine, in the hearts of those who love me, in all the living and flowing currents of the world, though I may never again in my entirety be embodied in a single human being. My elements and my forces go back into the original sources out of which they came, and these sources are perennial in this vast, wonderful, divine cosmos. 

We are links in an endless cycle of change in which we cannot separate material from what we call the spiritual ... Each of us is an incarnation of the universal mind, as is every beast of the field and jungle, and every fowl of the air, and every insect that creeps and flies; and we can only look upon creation as an end in itself ... [Humanity] is a link in an endless chain of being (Accepting the Universe, 1920).

All quotes above from: Meditations of John Burroughs: Nature is Home. Chris Highland (Ed), Self-published, 2007. 

Appendix Apocalypse: Album Artwork

This time last year I had a ruptured appendix which required surgery. Despite being wheeled into the hospital at 6am stating I had sudden cessation of agonising abdominal pain over McBurney’s point (a clear sign of ruptured appendix, which I pointed out) it took the NHS eight hours to give me a basic clinical examination, 15 hours to give me antibiotics, and 28 hours wait in A&E before I could get surgery. The extent of my condition only became clear after 2 hours of surgery: my appendix had ruptured by 50% at the base by the cecum, and wrapped tightly in the surrounding omentum which created a challenging clean up job. The surgeon said I would have died without the appendectomy, and had understandable concerns for my recovery. When a surgeon worries about your “recovery” that means your “survival”. 

Weeks ensued of peritonitis, followed by a grumbling postoperative abscess. Given the standard of ‘care’ I had previously received, I decided to treat myself using herbal medicine. During my interminable A&E delay, I had started hallucinating as though I was looking out on the bleak ignorance of the world from inside a stagnating lime green fishbowl, with my internal organs churning in a dishwasher of their own faecal gravy. All around me was the madness and brutality of a medieval hell, which reminded me of the Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights (1510). Completely unable to get through to the NHS staff the importance of getting immediate surgery, and in a private fishbowl of mortal torture, all I could do was elevate my consciousness above my broken body, and shine down compassion and unconditional love upon myself. 

During my convalescence I compiled this album. I felt something creative was in order to say I am here, I am alive, I will be whole again. Fuck you NHS, I survived in spite of your murderous negligence. I won’t ever be inanely banging pots and pans on my front doorstep like a clapping seal to say thanks for all your bullshit hard work.

Metaphysical Artwork

Last year, I completed a qualification with the University of Metaphysical Sciences in many diverse aspects of metaphysics and divinity. Their teaching methodology is experiential, and quite unlike anything I had previously undergone in academia. The aims of one of the Masters electives was to paint some therapeutic art depicting a variety of emotions, for inner contemplation. As you can no doubt see, I am completely out of my depth as an artist, but instead of choosing a different elective I decided to embrace the challenge this module offered and ordered myself some acrylic paints and A5 paper. The great value of this exercise to me was to explore emotions in a different medium to usual, with a focus on the expressive process rather than the outcome. I learned a lot from this experience. I like painting! In future I might get a full size easel and learn a few techniques which allow me to generate some more expansive, expressive, abstract canvases, maybe with some Jungian themes. Underneath each painting below I have included the description so you can identify how I arrived at my technique, although it was tempting to leave you guessing as to what each painting subjectively suggests to you. 

Poverty: Poverty is often oversimplified and reduced to clean, sharp lines (usually imbued with the heavy-handed piety of others). In reality poverty is multifactorial and complex. The image is violently broken by the centrifugal vortex of enervating grey and blood red, which merge into a crushing sense of oblivion. 

Bliss: Complementary pink & green colours which resemble the icing of an Easter egg are shown. Chocolate provides comfort and releases serotonin. The egg is a symbol of completeness, the World, swollen contentment and dormancy. “The World egg, or cosmic egg, is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures. Eggs symbolize the unification of two complementary principles (represented by the egg white and the yolk) from which life or existence, in its most fundamental philosophical sense, emerges.” (Wikipedia). Bliss is the one thing which gives birth to the many. 

Worry: The green background represents the fertile matrix of the unconscious from which worries emerge. The orange wavy lines are energised ripples of consciousness carrying warmer energy or fire. They are the evanescent disturbances of primal fears seeking to be reabsorbed into the matrix.

Excitement: The gold outer frame signifies the Halcyon/ rose tinted/ vintage/ secure quality of childhood. The concentric rainbow colours reinforce this and supply a motive quality which draws one to the centre of the picture, a magnetic fixation, an ideal or goal. 

Balance: The image is equally divided into four sections with the colours orange, blue, green, brown. This indicates the seasons of the year and the dynamic ecologic balance which occurs without conscious effort or planning. The red trim helps to balance the image visually, and suggests solar energy, and the animal/human connection with nature, which is intimately connected to, and necessary to its functioning, like stitching or embroidery which hold the whole together. 

Anger: The red background represents passion, blood, animal warmth. The black arrows are opposing concentrations of conscious effort, which can only be destructive in the power of their expression. The overall image produced is redolent of fascist symbology and necessity for control/ containment of violent impulses.

Softness: This rich and sensuous violet background is embellished with a gold circular horizontal line which resembles a gentle planetary transit, surrounded by the distant panoply of yellow stars. The softness implied is remote and cosmic, and has a timeless eternal quality. 

Happiness: The colours of this card are the colours of nature, where I am most happy. The green at the bottom represents the landscape, and the blue is the sky. The red/orange/brown/ yellow circles represent the plant kingdom in its various stages and seasons.

Passivity: The neutrality of the brown background is punctured by the more energetic, but complementary colour yellow. Although the active principle cuts through the passive, there is no conflict and in fact a creative unity results. 

Lucidity: Blue is the colour of clarity. White accentuates and focusses the mind in laser-like concentration in pursuit of a singular aim. 

Tish Murtha (1956-2013)

It was a pleasant surprise to see the BFI release a new documentary of Tish Murtha (dir. Paul Sng, 2023), the northeast photographer who catalogued the devastating effect of deindustrialisation during the 1970's-80's under Thatcherism. Murtha is probably most famous for her posthumously published books Youth Unemployment (2017), Juvenile Jazz Bands (2020), and Elswick Kids (2021).  

I have done a fair bit to highlight the photographic work of working class photographers on this blog, notably John Bulmer, Shirley Baker, Dave Sinclair and of course my own photography of Minsterley Parade in the early 1990's. I admit Tish Murtha slipped me by. At this point I should apologise profusely for my misogynistic oversight, but if you haven't heard of a photographer, you just haven't heard. It's ironic because she did quite a few exhibitions at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, and of course I lived there for a number of my most radical years in the 1990's. I should now rush to make amends and drag my sorry ass to the next film preview, examples of which are being screened in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Dundee, Hull and Newcastle. However, being more of an armchair anarchist nowadays, I think I will wait for a more accessible screening.

Update 9th April 2024: Tish is now available on BBC iPlayer, so available to all.  

For those that get to see it, the timing of this documentary could not be more apt. It was only a few weeks ago that Kier 'Stammer' was singing the virtues of Thatcher and how she 'did a lot of good things for the country.' Is this guy for real? Is he completely unaware there is an ingrained generation of northerners with long memories, who viscerally and antithetically reject the idolatry of Thatcherism as a cornerstone of their Labour support? The man is an idiot, and for that alone (well, actually many things besides) he can go and holler if he wants me to put my X next to his red version of the Tory party at the ballot box. Look at the photos below: of course not. Of course not Starmer, you f*cking culturally tone deaf cretin.