Bread and jam today

What a year. I meant to finish a third children's book about Bijou, the British dog who moved to France. I meant to get the 90% complete book of poetry through the editing process and up for sale. I meant to finish the second Shelf Barker humorous mystery novel and publish it.  I've got two watercolours unfinished on the drafting table where they've been since mid-November, before we went to Ireland the second time. I meant to get rid of the intense sacroiliac pain. (Might be underway at last; fingers crossed.)

 

I cannot tick a box for any of the above except--I hope and pray--the last. 

 

I did go to Ireland twice and meet more than half a dozen of my second cousins for the first time. Went to Leo's Tavern in Donegal for the first time, home of Enya, Clannad and Moya Brennan because Leo is their father. We replaced the ratty carpet in our entry and living room with hardwood. I renewed a connection with a friend. I had a really not very exciting art exhibit. (I will NEVER ever invite people into my studio again; I mean, do actors invite theatregoers to visit them in their dressing rooms? Argh. What was I thinking?)

 

However, I planned to post some words and art from upcoming books/sales as holiday gifts, and so I shall. But they are not new, mainly; they have a bit of age on them. But they come with love...as long as you don't insist on seeing the mess in my studio/office!

 

 

Bread and jam today

by Laura Harrison McBride

Winter is late. Freezing. Cold draughts limbo under the front door,

roll up the stairs and hopscotch around the banisters to

attack me in my studio. No, no

I will not buy fingerless gloves. I will turn 

on a space heater. I will

because I am not Degas, this is not Paris, and

I have a meal ticket. A man who

supports my engaging the arts to do battle with

whatever demons make us--

all of us arty folk--

engage ourselves in repetitive futility.

NYC tenement in earlier times; reminds me of Degas' Paris studio.

The best do not repeat. The wealthy

do. The wealthy artists find

a gimmick, a gimcrack, and crack their

muse on its sharp, metallic edges

all the way to the bank. Schnabel pottery on canvas--

oh dear, and other

New York talentless...well, I had better not go there. But,

No frozen, northern-lighted studio for them; they can afford 

heat. Models.

Holiday trips to exotic lands. I can

turn on the heat, thanks to my meal

ticket (dear man, he's my soul's bread and butter.)

I can labour at one-offs until I tire, and then

go downstairs, toss costly grounds

into the French press, stick a piece

of my favourite once for-rich-folks-only

white bread into the toaster. Slather butter, spread

strawberry Bon Maman to my heart's content.

Brown bread I used to bake, before the meal ticket, and drench

in butter and honey still warm. In the old days, the days when

I couldn't turn up the heat. I had no meal ticket. But I wouldn't...no,

never...I wouldn't use a gimmick to attract buyers. I ate brown bread, honey, not much else. But no gimmicks.

No.

Thank god for my beautiful tall handsome meal ticket; I owe him my art.

Copyright Laura Harrison McBride

Sensei

Around the first of the new year, I will have a new book of poems out. They reflect the times, times when the political situations in the English-speaking world have seen rates of depression soaring and bank accounts collapsing, along--in so many cases--with hope.

This poem, however, has within it the seed of hope that transcends generations, I think. I hope so. 

Jimmy Donlon as a teenager, 1960s.

Sensei

It had been forty years or more
since I had seen Jimmy. Since
I was a pre-teen, he a wild
youth of 20 or so. Now,
he lay dying, in a hospital
two hours from my home.

His brother asked me to
drive him there. We all went,
my brother, too, and Jimmy's two
sisters. The five of us crowded
into the semi-private room.
Lord knows what the visitors
of the other dying man thought
of the Irish pub we
created, laughing and teasing
as we always had. Lord knows.

We took turns sitting in the
single chair next to the bed.
I shrank back, knowing my
turn would come, hoping that
it wouldn't. Could I do this?

Finally, Maureen got up and I
had no place else to go. I
gritted my teeth and sat.
"Hold my hand, please," Jimmy
said, and I died. I had to do this.

I held the talented, calloused hands of
a painter of walls--murals, faux
marbre and other old/modern
ways with walls.

A house painter, that's all Jimmy
was.

That's what Jimmy was.

A
good painter, a skilled one. Maybe
a great one. His assistant called him
sensei.

He died a few days later, before
we could come back on another
Saturday and liven up the world
of the dying with our antics, carried
over from childhood, depended
upon to take us through the good, the bad
and the in-between. It's what we
Irish do; we greet everything with humour,
before the tears and after.

Jimmy's sons' friends filled a church
for his service. A bitter wind chilled his
aged father at the grave site. A blast of
Irish humour filtered through three Irish
generations that filled the restaurant
after. The same old jokes, laughed at
over and over and over again. Known
even by his son who lived in Hong Kong.

But I, I had got more out of Jimmy's death
than the welcome reminder of a vibrant
family, targeting happiness even in grief.

I had held his hand. He gave me peace,
then, to go on. Did he know the fears I
suffered, the terror of gripping the last
living moments of a man I had known so
long ago, when we both were young? Yes,
I think he did. I think he held my hand not
for him but for me.

That's who he was, that house painter.
Sensei.

Copyright 2018, Laura Harrison McBride

Colonic irrigation for the soul

You may not have toxic colon. You may just have Trump or Brexit.

In case you haven't figured it out, I am a liberal. I believe ALL people deserve decent food, housing, clothing, education and a society peaceful enough for everyone to work on reaching his or her heart's desire.

I decry anyone who, for greed or sociopathology, interferes with that by being needlessly vicious or by electing sociopaths. So yes, the bogus president of the United States and the reprehensible, if not quite as bogus, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom meet the criteria.

So what? So how is a relatively balanced person supposed to create art when sociopathic kleptocrats are in charge of the two largest English-speaking nations on earth? They're filling society and our hearts and minds and even souls with a layer of anti-humane memes a mile thick, backed up by the threat of force. Troops to corral refuges in Texas; the threat of soldiers on British streets to stop citizens killing each other over a box of aspirin post-Brexit.

Our every waking moment, for slightly more than 2.5 years, has been blanketed with not a tissue of lies, but a mile-thick blanket of egregious untruths, in both nations. Blotus lies, according to those who have surveyed it, an average of 100 times a day. ONE HUNDRED LIES A DAY FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. That is a level Nixon could only dream about, and he was a criminal from his wing-tips to his thinning hair.

May doesn't lie as much, I think. She doesn't need to. Like a parrot who has had a stroke, she repeatedly parrots her single meme about leave meaning leave.  (Ah, yes, doctor, about that loss of cerebral function....) She is so totally incompetent that whatever she does or says is greeted with palpable disdain and disrespect by, I think, both Remainers and Leavers. The Leavers fear she will NOT ruin the nation as they desire so that they can feel better, tossers that they are, as the rest of us are forced to live like rats. Remainers are worried that she will ruin it so that we will be under siege not only from the envious Leaver rats whose own addlepated actions are sinking the ship, but from the petty criminals the rapidly declining society will spawn.

But this isn't a political blog; that would be McBride's Bar & Grill.

It's not a health blog, either.

So what's the title about, then, especially after the anti-fascist rant above?

It's about how we manage to get through it, how we remove the largest loads of crap the world has seen in a century, at least, from invading our sacred space, our artistic soul. Or how, if the walls have been breached, we can manage to shit the poison out, metaphorically speaking.



Shit it out, though, I think we must. Either that, or we'll find ourselves babbling in a corner about how cute Hallmark-style cards with little Kewpie dolls and cutesy saying on them really are. And god forbid, painting one.

So what to do?

ART

A relatively calm expression of the attitude that requires colonic cleansing. L. H. McBride, 2019 It is probably fit for the Museum of Bad Art; it was done in abut 4 minutes or less in the old Microsoft Paint program.

There have been, for some time now, art therapy courses for kids and adults suffering almost any kind of malady or disruption.

Aside from that, artists make are. Some artists, perhaps realist painters, might fling paint at a canvas to relieve their angst, and call the result abstract expressionism. Others would paint horrific faux-medieval tableaux of devils down the the tiniest detail.   

Writers can also turn their skill to tasks they don't ordinarily undertake with a view to relieving stress. Some, who might toil as poets by day, might write a dystopian novel. A journalist might write a play; a playwright might decide on a series of letters to the editor--journalism of sorts--to clear her artistic colon of accumulated bullshit.

I have been thinking for days of doing the paint slinging. But I'm too cheap to waste expensive oils. Watercolour wouldn't bring to the effort the gravitas it demands. The idea of writing a play or even a dystopian novel is daunting; I've got the second Shelf Barker mystery, Pool Full of Death, to complete sometime between now and Christmas; it's humorous, so I don't want to get a tragedian's mindset about it all at the moment.

A more distressed Paint effort in the colonic cleansing vein. L.H. McBride, 2019

Yes, the very thing: the old Microsoft Paint program. It's simple, vibrant--unless you do a lot of monkeying with the colours with various effects. If you do that, though, it won't be quick and won't get the foul meal of Republican or Tory force-feeding through your gullet and out the nether end, so to speak. So no, just Paint, alone.

Really getting the shit shifted now; no pretense at design. L. H. McBride, 2019

I did the three Paint works above while I was writing this.

And just now, my efforts opened me up to one I want to do. A cabbage. Just a cabbage. A cabbage somehow reminds me of that grand photo of 45IQ in an old-style clear plastic women's rain hat, the ones that tie under the chin. (Not high art, but high humour to be sure.)

If you're a writer with a colonic issue, I'd suggest you sign up for Comedywire; being forced to write funny one-liners about anything and everything is one way to force the Cheeto/Brexit bullshit out of your system for a while.

I go through Comedywire periods, but it as been a while. Sometimes the crap is so thick, you can't even shift it that far. But I just checked it. Top of page was a BBC report about Pilots Report IFOs off Irish Coast. The first quip I read was, "Where else would little green men be headed?"  You don't even have to be PC in your comments. And I'm fairly sure I've used the word Fuck on Comedywire and it got posted.

I became a member of Comedywire months and months ago, maybe years. It might have been when no one with a brain could imagine Cheeto could ever be elected. Maybe that long.

When I joined (one had to send a CV then, don't know about now), the founder let me join but asked me why I wanted to, as he could see that I was basically a journalist, and journalists aren't known for being witty, although I admit we are known for being PC, snarky and at times a bit darkly humorous. He was probably right to be a bit skeptical; there are times when the inundation of political bullshit these days is so deep, I can't even dream of making a funny remark. But if I force myself, it helps.

Or you could try the old standards: drinking and carousing.  Both are fun, and might clear the pipes pretty well. But you can't do them instantly; Paint and Comedywire, you can.



Plus, you can always drink and carouse later, when you feel better.

###

Copyright 2018, LH McBride

Stripping in the dark and other teenage tales

One of these got his revenge on me for about a dozen years after high school. Although I was a bit of a nerd, I was hoping to shake it off before I was 21.

Sometimes, when one is trying to think about one's life, life intervenes.

I had decided, finally, to write something, probably humorous, about this odd life of mine. The one in which I moved house 56 times between age 18 and now. In which I have experienced all natural disasters except avalanche. In which I was tossed off horses 27 times, only three of those events being life-threatening. In which I have been a freelancer for all but seven years between age 21 and now, but held at least 11 jobs. It's probably more, but those were top-of-mind, as we used to say in advertising. Oops, twelve jobs. I had forgotten the one as creative director of a horrid little ad agency.

But I can't think of all the incidents in my life that are worthy of ink. Especially humorous ink. And it has to be humorous, because if I dwell on the sad or scary things, I might cry or die. Besides which, it wouldn't be very entertaining.

At one point, I decided to just sit and sort of think about my life year by year and jot down any experiences that might be amusing to someone else. OK. Year 1. Nope, don't remember a thing. Year 2. Same. Year 3. Same. Year 4....and so on, right up until about age 12 or so. Maybe no one recalls those early years, but simply think they do. I might have thought that, too, except as a journalist, it quickly came to my attention that I was told the things I recall: I didn't flat out remember them at all.

Preteen pretense

The height of 1950s spring fashion, matching dress and coat.

So let's start with that twelfth year. 

It was Eastertime, and I was pumped up about having a swell new beige dress with white polka dots and a matching coat in beige with white polka dots on the lapels. AND I had a new hat, beige with flowers. All of the finery was on my grandmother's dining room table. And so was a packet of catsup. And my little brother.

I'm quite sure someone had told me to put the clothes away upstairs, but I hadn't. Before long, my brother climbed across the table. The catsup was under my hat, until it was ON my hat, squished and squirted as my brother--for reasons unknown to me--crawled across the table.

I can't recall whether my mother or grandmother bought me a new hat, although I suspect they did. But the experience of my first grown-up outfit had been ruined.

See? That's not a funny story. Actually, it's rather sad. But it came to mind. The funny ones come to mind when I'm chatting with someone. And I'm rarely chatting with someone while I'm sitting in front of my computer.

Still, I'll give it another go. Just one more, I promise.

Adore-able

Fast forward a couple of years. I was 14, and had the part of the princess Adora* in the high school play, performed publicly a few times but mainly put on for the grade schools, of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp. I was SO proud. The female lead. Me, a beautiful princess, with beautiful costumes and a handsome prince. Indeed, the handsome prince really was handsome, and I quite fancied him. Slender, dark hair, flashing dark eyes. Al F. (no more ID,just in case) was half German and half Puerto Rican. And he could dance. I've never known anyone since who could dance like he did, and I love to dance. Anyway, we finally did start dating. That didn't last too long, but we remained friends until he graduated a year before me. A few years later, I ran into him in a movie theater lobby while my date bought snacks. He was an air traffic controller for the Air Force. I wonder if they'd have liked to know that, on the night of my senior prom, he came over for wee hours breakfast my father was making for my friends and I, and pulled my father out the back door to see the "spaceship" Al had seen when he walked through the woods to our house.

Rendering of Aladdin in a deep cave being "saved" by the evil magician in a printed version of the story, drawn by French artist Albert Robida.

But that's an aside. The real story is this....

So there we were, in the scene where the wicked wizard who has imprisoned Adora drinks the poison she gives him and jumps out the window. In one dress rehearsal, someone had parked a chair behind that window opening, and the actor--who, by the way, was a very unpopular fellow, a rather supercilious nerd with a nasty streak--gave his head a good crack on the way out. It's a wonder, really, that he didn't break his neck. And one must wonder whether, considering his popularity, one of the crew hadn't stupidly left the chair there on purpose.

So, there we were in our first performance for the entirety of one local elementary school. I didn't forget any lines: whew! The worst part of acting, memorizing lines. At length, we came to the denouement, without discernible flaws. There was no chair behind the window; the teacher had checked and given us the OK from the wings.

The wizard snarled at me, and I offered him his glass of poisoned wine, which was supposed to save me and Aladdin from his threats and spells. (In those pre-PC days, no one objected to kids in a play giving pretend wine to characters in a play, although I hate to think of the demonstrations that would go on these days.)




The wizard took the glass I gave him, quaffed it right down as I sipped coyly at my glass as a princess would...and the audience erupted in laughter and shouts of, "She drank the poison."

Well, I only got a little bit.

And my error could have been worse. I could "poisoned" myself in front of the high school or public audiences. But at least I learned a lesson: Check your props and make absolutely sure the ones you need have your initials or something on them. That sort of translates to the rest of life, actually.

It isn't particularly funny. But then, it doesn't end there.

Shelley Winters as Mrs. Van Daan in the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank.

I did do more acting in high school, notably playing Mrs.Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, in which we all got to change costumes on stage.  It couldn't be helped. The set was huge and stuck right through the proscenium arch. No curtain. And it was a two-storey set, as well; no time to sprint to the dressing rooms. So the director/teacher decided lights off and we'd change costumes in the dark in full 'view' of the audience. We were hardly likely to grope each other, it being the 1960s. 

Still, it was a little titillating, especially for the geeky boy who played Mr. Van Daan and who, every time I visited my hometown where he worked in the deli until we were at least 30, would loudly say, regardless of how many bodies deep the deli counter queue was, "Remember the time we took off our clothes together in the dark?" 

Cripes.


* Adora, short for Badroulbador, was the original name of the character from a later version of 1001 Arabian Nights. Disney changed it to Jasmine.
  
Copyright 2018 by Laura Harrison McBride

Peace, prosperity, art and the quantum field

 

Nave, Ely Cathedral, Cambridge, UK*

I wonder if I would be wrong in saying most artists are not religious, or at least, they don't follow the religions expected in their country. I can't say I've ever met many artists in church, but then, I don't actually go to church. 

If I did go to church, I would alternate between Anglican (Church of England in the UK, Episcopal in the US) and Religious Science. (No, NOT Scientology. Religious Science is also called Science of Mind.)

Indeed, that's what I did when I lived in the US where one can find both formats of approaching the godhead within driving distance of just about anywhere. (OK, maybe not in what a friend calls Chokelahoma.....) In the UK, Anglican is easy. Religious Science? Well, there's one congregation about 2.5 hours from my house--so no, I haven't been there.

Church art

I love the Anglican Church for the artistic qualities, mainly. The music, often world-class even in mid-sized churches. The beautiful historic buildings. The lovely vestments. The poetic cadence of readings from the King James Bible. And the coffee hour. Gotta have a coffee hour. If it doesn't, it won't matter what else it has, I won't attend. Because church is also about community. If it has all that, I can forget the sometimes ludicrous interpretations of the wise sayings of that gentle guru, Jesus of Nazareth, and all of the medieval claptrap about bodies zinging on up to heaven without so much as a ticket for Ryanair.

As for Religious Science, it always has a coffee hour after a service. Good thing, because there is no liturgy to speak of, the music is usually modern (think Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken, one of the best you'll hear there), and it's often held in a meeting room in an industrial estate.

Thoughts are things

But one goes for the teaching. Religious Science, founded by a man named Ernest Holmes, was early into the quantum physics movement. Holmes KNEW that thoughts, properly used, created things. "Thoughts are things" is a primary tenet of the belief. (Find a brief explanation of Religious Science/Science of Mind here.) Thus, don't think about what you don't want as, by being cast out into the quantum field, those thoughts will produce results you don't want.

By the way, the quantum field is a real thing. 

Do you think that matter and energy are different things? Not to a quantum scientist. In the quantum universe, there is no such thing as matter and energy; EVERYTHING is energy. Here's an example, stainless steel. A lump of the stuff is no more than molecules of steel energy components vibrating so slowly that they seem solid. (You may have heard that even within atoms, there is so much empty space that the distance between a proton and a neutron is like the distance from the earth to the sun, in miniature.)

This is not the quantum field; it is a Hubble telescope photo of LOTS of little universes. Indeed. all of this is in the quantum field, and the quantum field is in it. (NASA.gov photo)

So, what does any of this have to do with art? Simple. Your thoughts are creative in so many more ways than you might ordinarily think about that it is worth it to paint your entire life, not just the canvas on the easel, or to choreograph it or write the notes or it in such a way that it is as beautiful a creation as the ones you can see or hear.

Art/life/politics

And that applies to ALL of life. Even politics.

And politics, at the moment, requires a whole lot of attention in the quantum field. It is, in the English-speaking worlds of the US and the UK, at a point of change. Will it be nurturing to all its people and and all its neighbors, or will it be hostile, penalizing all people and things unlike themselves or worse, unlike them and begging for their help?

The point of change is in the middle. Western society is at a point o change. Will it go up or down?

In Christian religions, the second course of action is wrong. The Christ bids everyone to care for his or her neighbour at all times. No exceptions. Friend or foe. And so, by the way, do Orthodox Judaism and the better practices of Islam. (ISIS is to Islam as Ian Paisley is to Protestantism in Northern Ireland, in short, a very dangerous departure from godly teaching--in Religious Science terms, using the mind for negative results for people.)

I don't want to get to far into any religion here. There are tons of books about the loving teachings of Jesus if you want them, or about the foundational ethical tenets of both Judaism and Islam.

But few people would know where to find Religious Science tenets, or even that the primary belief of the approach to life, death and everything in between is "thoughts are things."

That having been said, it seems to me using a bit of Religious Science wouldn't hurt. It seems inconceivable to me that any artist working in any genre would want to subscribe to thinking or actions that are inimical to human life, as those thoughts are likely to become things. Among those thoughts would be: 

• kill refugees instead of helping them
• mistreat people of genders you don't understand
• hoard
• deprive others of what you have and what you can give
• ....and onward. 

Be aware: whatever evil you desire for others will, MUST, eventually come back to you. Thoughts are things. 

We could, therefore, just wait for the wheel to go round and the despicable governments of the US and the UK to be gone...sometime.

In equine competition, when asked how do you get over those big fences, the answer is: You toss your heart over first, and then the horse will follow. In short, you set the intention to jump it, ask the horse to agree, and it is done. Thoughts are things.

Or we can cast Religious Science thoughts into the quantum soup, believing that it does not have to be this way, that people do not have to suffer at the hands of the greedy and the vicious. We can fervently repeat a prayer like this one:

There is one quantum field. Everything that exists is, was and will be a part of this quantum field. The quantum field has no desires; it produces exactly what we tell it to produce; thoughts are things.

Therefore, we demand that the quantum field immediately negate the processes of negativity, processes of greed, processes of intimidation, and processes of neglect of the citizens of the US and the UK.

In the place of these things and all other harmful actions, we demand that governments take care of the people instead of subjugating them to the demands of the unenlightened few.

We demand that governments cease seeing how much they can get away with and instead see how much they can provide in terms of peace, abundance and opportunity for all the citizens, both within their borders and those who need protection and come from elsewhere.

We demand this now.

And so it is.

I believe if all people of goodwill fervently issued such instructions repeatedly to the Quantum Intelligence, we would see a change in the very chaotic conduct so prevalent in the US and the UK at the moment. We would create the work of art we desire; peace and prosperity for all, in which all could create what their souls desire.

Goodness knows, our temporal actions--marches, letter campaigns, etc.--have fallen on deaf ears. It is time to turn it over to the intelligence of the Universe, and demand relief. For all. No matter how. (We cannot tell the quantum field HOW to do something, but simply what to do; it must work in its own ways of quantum physics law. But work it must when the demand is made upon it. That is its nature; to run the universe for good.)





*Photo credit:
Ely Cathedral By Diliff - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34607450

The Turnip Prize and Me

Once again, now that I'm back in the UK, I'm going to enter a couple of pieces o fartwork---yes, it says, o fartwork on purpose, rather than of artwork--for the Turnip Prize. Again, not the prestigious Turner Prize, but the even MORE prestigious Turnip Prize. In my opinion.

I first entered four years ago, having phoned the mastermind of this wonderful addition to the art world and asked him to let me know if my entry was on the right track. He was patient as I described it, then said he thought it probably took too much work. I sent it anyway. (Photo below)
  

Parliament of Foules, my first losing Turnip Prize entry. (For non UK residents, the dork at the right is David Cameron, Tory PM who got us into this fucking Brexit mess. The rest are other execrable Tories.)

It didn't win.

But I was on a mission. So the next year, I sent two entries. They were so simple, it took me no more than 2 minutes to create each one.

The first was called Cock-a-Doodle and it was a scribble of a pecker on a sheet from a notepad, taped to a bit of cardboard.

The second was elaborate, consisting of a bill from our vet with a plastic bull from a bottle of wine taped to it and the whole thing taped to a piece of cardboard. It was called Bull Chit.

It didn't win either.

Then we moved to France in 2016 during pre-Turnip Prize season, so I missed that year. Then we moved back to our house in the UK last year during pre-Turnip season, except the skanky tenant was still in our house. We spent six weeks in two holiday homes waiting for the courts to move their arse and hers, and it just wasn't possible for me to get excited about the Turnip Prize. Or to create an entry.

So I missed two years. But ta da!  This year I have four--FOUR--entries in mind. I have now obtained all the materials I need for all four: a glass jar, an old watch, some toy horses, toy knights, a mouse squeak toy for cats, a tiny ladder and candy corn. I hope the fact that the corn had to be imported from the US won't disqualify that entry for being too demanding to create. But they don't have candy corn in the UK, and it was essential, so I had to take the artistic risk. (Oh, dear, this does sound like too much effort. Note to Turnip Prize judges: Please remember that these are the raw materials for FOUR entries, so how much time could I possibly spend on each one?)

Last year's winner was called Pulled Pork, and it was a toy tractor attached to a toy pig by a piece of cord.

I really do want to win.

It's not just the swell turnip mounted on board with a rusty nail that I want. It's the chance to go to the awards ceremony in Somerset--only a couple of hours away--and revel through the night. Or at least the early evening.

In case you want to enter (DON'T YOU DARE ENTER!), the information you need is below.

The Turnip Prize is a spoof art award of the lesser known Turner Prize. We will be accepting entries for this year’s competition from Friday 1st November. Entries should take the least amount of effort possible to create.

To enter contact:

Trevor 01934 710004 or 07812848011

Or The New Inn, Wedmore.

Alternatively leave your entry at The New Inn, Combe Batch, Wedmore, Somerset. BS28 4DT

Please include your name or pseudonym and contact phone number.

Closing date for entries will be Friday 21st November.

The winner will be announced at The New Inn, Wedmore, Somerset on Tuesday 5th December at 6.30pm.

For more info visit The New Inn, Wedmore or our facebook page

If you're not THAT deep into crap art, you might want to buy the toilet-side book instead, below.

Frankly, I think Knickerless Cage took quite a lot of work, considering.

BTW: I don't know if you SHOULD buy it via the link below. I got a note this morning telling me my blogs had not sold enough amazon product (oh, gosh, SO sorry, should have known I was working for Bezos' increasing wealth, and not my own art purposes), so I'd say either find it in a store or see if Waterstone's (UK) or Barnes & Noble (US) can order one for you. Or just do a LookInside.

Charcuterie by any other name

Purchased from the artist across the street from Les Deux Magot in Paris many, many years ago.

I have bought art on the streets several times. Sometimes, it was not so unusual--for instance, in Central Park on a lovely warm day near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One such painting purchased on the hoof and on the spur of the moment still hangs in my house. It is a small print of a very Japanese-style original watercolour. Another work, purchased the same day--elongated horses with elongated riders dressed for a fox hunt--is long gone. Neither cost more than 20 bucks, although they were both admirable in their way.

And then there are the charity purchases. On came to hand on the beach at the end of Duval Street in Key West, Florida. There, I bought a truly terrible seascape painted with poster paints on the back of a beer carton. The painter was, I'm quite sure, homeless. That picture, too, is long gone.

Still living with me after all these years is the acrylic painting above, purchased neither because it was quite good art nor for charitable reasons. This small painting was hanging on a fence with similar works, most of them much larger (this one fit in my purse), across the street from Les Deux Magot, itself a cafe with excellent Parisian art and lit. creds.  The artist was hawking his work to tourists in the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve from the fence surrounding the ancient L'Eglise de St. Germain-des-Pres. How could anything be more European? Although, truth to tell, I imagined at the time that the painter was a broke English or American student, possibly the reason he barely managed a Bonjour or a Merci, lest we discover he was not a starving French student.

I didn't buy that painting just because it was easy to carry home. Or because it cost about 20 bucks, although in francs (it was that long ago), my usual street-art limit. Or because of the possible starving artist student. Or because I was sated after coffee and pastry at Les Deux Magot and in a spendthrift mood. Or because it was hanging on a fence surrounding an historic church.

I bought it because charcuterie is misspelled. There is no reason an artist has to be a good speller, anymore than a good speller needs to be a good artist. Still, surely the artist had seen the spelling on any number of establishments in Paris; he might even have frequented some.

The misspelling made me laugh. The fact that the faces, except or the moustachioed man, have no features but eyes also made me laugh. And it reminded me of the artist uncle of a friend who sold his work for big prices in NYC, all of them figure studies. Without faces. The man could not paint faces, my friend told me. But that didn't stop him living a charmed artists' life. If by charmed, one means selling one's work for enough to afford a middle-class life, a rarity 40 years ago, even more so now.

Possibly my favourite place in Paris, and one that's affordable--unlike the Hotel Duc de St. Simon. Since I stayed there around 1980, and it was expensive but not wildly so, it has become obscenely so--430 E. for a small suite to start. Why? The glitteratti discovered it. (Photo by Roboppy, Wikipedia,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5011222 )

The painting hangs now, as it has for many years, in my kitchen. It did not hang in my kitchen in Quillan, languedoc. It would have seemed out of place. And actually, I rather thought I'd move back to the UK at some point. I didn't like Languedoc. It isn't Paris. It isn't a place where--as I imagined--an English-speaking student would act like a French student and hang his work on a fence to try to sell it. For much of the year, Quillan is fully 40 percent English speakers. Artistic? Well, no. It has a huge art festival every spring, and the town even hides the derelict buildings on so many centre ville streets with clever painted panels. But it's still not French.

Paris is French. And no matter the language of the painter, so is that painting.