It begins.
I’ve left my old blog up as an artefact, and don’t intend adding to it. That blog covers politics, economics, and philosophy, and represents my position on that holy triumvirate (life), but – for now – I’ve had a gutsful of (just) them; especially the politics. This blog will be an occasional diary of the day-to-day, with some art I love from Twitter and the odd book review. Loosely, aesthetics and living, with little in the way of discipline.
Albeit I doubt I’ll be reviewing my current read, Hanya Yanagihara’s novel, A Little Life, as it contains too much of the ugliness of life; I’m not enjoying it and only continue because Yanagihara has caught my interest in protagonist Jude enough for me to want to find out what his fate becomes.
So, below is my favourite painting on Twitter today: George Bellows,”The Big Dory”,1913. I’ve always loved living by the sea, it’s hope, somehow, and a direct tap into inner peace – perhaps because Pauline and I are getting ready to move to the Mahau Sound permanently I’m growing calmer and able to relegate political flame-wars to where they belong: somewhere else. Indeed, reviewing the political portion of my Twitter timeline, post-Trump, with Alt-right and Progressives birthing each other tweet by hateful tweet, Chilean playwright Alejandro Jodorowsky’s line birds born in a cage think flying is an illness remains at the forefront of my mind.
I would love to have this painting on my wall; the colours, movement and community are gorgeous, while taking nothing from the dread and danger evident on the faces of the men, looking at the brooding storm upon them. One of those moments, as when storms move through the Mahau, you feel alive and tuned into that dark, seductive potential on the edge of the unknown and dangerous.
(Painting from Twitter timeline of: @Autora_de_Nada )
Books, Films & Art, Plus a Bit of Life I've Squeezed In. 
SO looking forward to the way your new blog and new direction takes… Interesting minds are utterly seductive, in the widest possible sense of the word… I think you probably know what I mean…
Love the first panting of your choice… atmospheric and powerful… wonderful chunks of colour, and the pose of the nearest mariner reminded me so much of the fetchingly alive figures of Brueghel’s people going about their business…
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Well, you did move from ‘seductive’ to the Freudian slip up of ‘panting’ over ‘painting’ but, don’t panic, I do know what you mean. It’s what defines the blogs I read (including, it goes without saying, your own).
I’m in a Facebook writers group of mainly Brits and Americans – we’ve been corresponding for years (pre-Facebook!) with the association mainly social now – and one of the Brits informed me a Dory is a fishing boat. Looking at their faces in the painting, however, there seems something more momentous here than a fishing trip. Or perhaps it ‘is’ as mundane as having to go out into the storm to earn your living.
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Striking painting, indeed. Just a slight niggle is that the foreground fishermen seem to me to be moving the boat the wrong way.
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Are they? I think they’re pushing it down a slipway (backwards) into the sea.
Great to have you here Colonisalist.
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I’m sure you are right. It helps when I view it in greater size and realise that the men at the stern are moving the same boat and not another one just beyond.
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