Ziba Karbassi - Poet

Ziba Karbassi was born in Tabriz, northwestern Iran in 1974. She fled her country in the 1980's and, accompanied by her mother moved to London. She commutes between London and Paris where she now lives. She has published ten books of poetry in Persian, Ziba is widely regarded as the most accomplished Persian poet of her generation. Her poetry is tough, uncompromising  dense and challenging. It is edgy stuff and even if you are unable to understand the words the emotions they carry have a weight that resonates. She is new to me but has been read widely across Europe and America. Her poems have appeared in many languages throughout Europe, the UK and US and have that quality shared by the old beat poets and punk. It is visceral stuff.

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Indeed
By: Ziba Karbassi
Translated from Persian by Shirindokht Nourmanesh

And you—the innocent, virtuous, and chaste ladies
with your bent necks
and your effeminate walk
with your precious thousand-year chokers of stillness,
you are indeed right,
I am a whore.
And certainly this sun too
is peeking out from underneath your skirts
here
on my paper.

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Love Is The Colour of Lemon
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If you take away this pink veil from my face
love is the lemon colour that lemon-limps its
way to the tangerine sun

Eyelashes and neck
Eyelashes cockeyed and neck skew-whiffed
Crooked into your shoulder-nooks
That seem like children’s doodle-drawn homes
My head is craned down to your cranny bone
We are stood two crazed souls in each other
Stood neck to neck
Shoulder to shudder

Eyelashes and neck just there
Craned round again in the whorl of hot bone
And your eyes that kissing-kissed wet my lips
And your eyes that wet the kisses of my other lip
Your eye that plunges its furrow until we can’t see
Fused in the voice and rapture of it

Come, come if you take the pink slowly from here
Love is this lemon colour that oh lemon-limps bitter
then leaps to the tangerine womb

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aNOtHEr tWo fiNGerS tO THe bIShoPs oF biGOtrY.

Archie Leigh-Jones - Sculpture

Archie's latest creation is the improved super de-luxe Party Popper Gatling Gun prototype No. 2 made in his 1st year at the sculpture department of the University of Brighton.   Check out his other work at his blog -  Archie's Art.

Words From The Wise

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

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Mae West

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. aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Death by Absinthe

They say Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. At least I think that’s what they say. There has been a lot of nonsense spoken about the drink in the past. Some have said it is such a lethal drink that you can only take one glass for more might kill you. It is of course a myth. Absinthe is no more potent, no more dangerous than any other drink.

It is commonly referred to in historical literature as "la fée verte" (the green fairy). Although it is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a liqueur absinthe is not traditionally bottled with added sugar, and is therefore classified as a spirit. Absinthe is traditionally bottled at a high level of alcohol by volume is normally diluted with water prior to being consumed. It has a taste of aniseed. It is one of Vicar Linkthorpe’s favourite drinks.

Here are two posters featuring the drink that I find charming. 

 

Bon appetit!

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aNOtHEr sIp FRoM ThE mURkY gREeN bREw.

Practical and Pithy the Quotes from the Posh

 

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"The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible enough to give none."

  Eden Phillpotts

mOtHEr dIp IN ThE mOoDy mEMOrY pILE.

Texas Kitty

A friend sent me a cassette of Texas Kitty ripped from a Dutch LP some years ago. Recently found some new tracks on YOUTube including this great Spooktrein song. Not much found out about her on the interweb.................................................................................................................. Luckily a Dutch friend Jan managed to track down a short biography on a dutch website. Her real name was Kitty Prins. "She was born in Groningen, The Netherlands. She was not only a singer, but a professional painter as well. However her carreer in our country never really got from the ground. She was more succesfull in Vlaanderen (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium). She also had a fan-club in South Africa and she had contacts with the Country Music Assocation in the VS, where she perfromed in the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. After being seriously disappointed in The Netherland by people breaking contracts and so on, she decided to move to Vlaanderen permanently. Untill 1981 she presented a country show on Belgian radio. The last years of her life she spent painting. The website isn't clear about her birth and death date (1900-1900?)." Thanks for that Jan.

Poetry Book of the Year 2012 - 'Naked Clay' by Barry Hill

From concept to delivery this book of poems really excels. The idea of tackling a painter’s work and transposing those images as words may not be new but the honest, sometimes brutal, way that Barry Hill sets about portraying Lucian Freud’s work is nothing short of masterful. My relatively new introduction to poetry, Dylan Thomas and Basho to one side, has been further excited by this incredible body of work.

Unlike a novel which has a narrative that propels you along urging you to follow its course until you reach that final page, poetry, or so it strikes me, is far more contemplative. As I read one poem I found myself dwelling on it, ruminating over its marvellous rhythms, its meaning and the way the words cascaded.  This book has left me breathless. I return to it again and again.

Barry Hill not so much praises the art of Lucian Freud, although in circumspect fashion he does, as examines it. His take on the famed artists work, his portraits, is as honest an appraisal as it often is blunt and questioning. He really does ask of the art and the artist why? Did Freud ever consider the implications of painting his daughter naked whilst menstruating? It is the 'edgy' approach that elevates this set of poems above all else I have read this year.

Barry Hill is an Australian historian, poet, journalist and academic. He was born in Melbourne, Australia and studied at the University of Melbourne where he gained his Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Education (B Ed) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and from there went to London where he gained his Master of Arts (MA) degree from the  University of London.

Hill has worked in both Melbourne and London. In London he worked for the Times Literary Supplement. Since 1975 Hill has been a full-time writer and is currently Poetry Editor of  The Australian newspaper.

 

 

HAPPY FESTIVITIES HOWEVER YOU CELEBRATE THEM

 

 

 

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Peter Hawkins

Another unsung hero who almost single handedly did all the voices of the childhood television characters I grew up with and loved like Billy Bean, The Flowerpot Men, Captain Pugwash and the Daleks to name but a few. I actually wrote him a fan letter once when I was at art school in the 60's and he sent me a very nice letter back which I treasure ( if only I could find it!).

Wikipedia says -

"Born in London and a native of Brixton, Hawkins' long association with British children's television began in 1952 when he voiced both Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men. In 1955–1956, He voiced Big Ears & Mr. Plod from The Adventures Of Noddy. He also provided all the voices for the animated series Captain Pugwash, The Family Ness, The Adventures of Sir Prancelot, The Adventures of Tintin, and Bleep and Booster, the latter of which was a regular feature of the long-running children's magazine series Blue Peter in the 1960s and early 70s. He was also the narrator for SuperTed. Peter Hawkins also narrated Jimbo and the Jet Set.
He voiced several characters on Doctor Who in the show's early years, most notably the Daleks and the Cybermen. He was also the original voice of Zippy on Rainbow during the first year of its run (1972). Coincidently his replacement on Rainbow, Roy Skelton, also went on to voice the Daleks. Hawkins and Skelton also voiced the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet. He voiced Penfold who had a Welsh accent & Mr. McNasty who had a Scottish accent on The Pilot Dangermouse episode, The Mystery of the Lost Chord in 1979.
Hawkins was the original voice for the character of Frankie Mouse in the fourth radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast in March 1978.
During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Hawkins was one of the most sought after voiceovers for television and radio, being a regular face and voice around the Soho based circuit of commercial production studios, and working regularly with the likes of Patrick Allen, Edward Judd, David Tate and David Jason amongst whom he was highly respected.
Hawkins was the owner of a fine art collection, including works by Monet, Pissarro & Alfred Sisley, owned a collection of Japanese sword guards and was very keen on Japanese delicacy.
Hawkins retired from the acting profession in 1992 due to illness, which also prevented him from contributing to any DVD release of Doctor Who outside of archive footage. He died in London, aged 82, on 8 July 2006, coincidentally the same day that the 2006 season finale of Doctor Who, "Doomsday", the first to feature Daleks and Cybermen confronting each other, was transmitted.
Nicholas Briggs, the current voice of the Daleks, paid tribute to him in Doctor Who Magazine, praising him as the best Dalek voice artist, saying "...all of us who've provided Dalek voices over the last 40 years owe him a massive debt. None of us have been as good as Peter, but he supplied our inspiration. He was truly the Emperor of the Daleks."

Quirky Quotes from Quirky Quoters

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"I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral."

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Spike Milligan on Harry Secombe's death

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aNOtHEr bAiL sTuMpeD ofF tHe WIckEt.