Whatever comes to mind before I alter it with the overpaint of time. Mostly satire, poetry and fiction but occasional unreliable fact, as all facts seems to be today. From deepest Notting Hill. London.
Thursday 30 July 2009
Tuesday 28 July 2009
SSSSHHHHH!!! YOU'RE IN A LIBRARY
Monday 27 July 2009
how i became a coppers nark.
I met tonight a very beautiful woman, a talented woman, an intelligent woman, fortunately i am still suffering from the after affects of the bromide slipped into my night caps by nurse Caz so was able to listen to her story.
At some stage she informed me that she was a police officer and flashed her badge.
I gave in, admitted everything, took the blame for crimes I had never committed, pleaded to be handcuffed and interviewed at legnth. I longed to help her with her enquiries on condition that there was no question of bail and that I would be kept in captivity for ever.
I went home to a warm fish and chips supper.
Caught bang to rights.
Sunday 26 July 2009
the Muse and memories
Rusty tears and kitten heeled cowboys
Saturday 25 July 2009
Friday 24 July 2009
Bicycle thieves
I'm sure there are many uses for a locked motorcycle lock.
I can think of very few uses for a siezed up bike. Except perhaps throwing it at the clown.
Taking shelter from the rain in a cow.
On the way back from a symbiosium meeting the rain came. the only thing to do was take shelter in the Cow on Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill.
It was neccessary to dash through the downpour to the Westbourne accross the road to get online. Another good pub!
Thursday 23 July 2009
Mick Jagger, unreliable memories and the Tabernacle.
At the tabernacle, Notting Hill last night to hear Joseph Macwan and his band 'Out of Karma' (check him out). People have done good things to the old place (I remember hanging out there back in the sixties when it was squatted by a bunch of anti-establishment dreamers and schemers and downright bad guys) you should go down and take a look and a beer and maybe lunch and sit in the courtyard as I did...
and cast your eyes over the house opposite where Performance was filmed when Mick Jagger was something of a God and drugs were not only cool but obligatory and London swung like a pendulum do.
I was Mick's body double for the bedroom scenes.
That is another story.
The Tabernacle, Powis Square, London W11 2AY
http://www.tabernaclelive.co.uk/
Saturday 18 July 2009
Separated by a cigarette paper 4,000 miles thick.
Thats about the right distance for a woman said tristan
Collaborating in El Camino
In my new found bachelor-hood I have been eating at El Camino in Portobello road, under the Westway, opposite the tented market.
It is the place you hope to expect when feeling low and humming Dwight Yoakam songs and thinking of crossing the border with all the pretty horses.
They have a shelf of Mexican toys to play with if you need to play with a Mexican toy. It is run by nice kids who treat an old man with kindness and tolerance and it;s the right side of inexpensive. you might hear the fuck word but you don't have to pay gordon Ramsay prices to hear it.
Makes me think of Rusty Mcglint and Fluente Maiale: how are those boys, maybe I should give them a call, invite them down for a Taco and a beer and perhaps even invite Tristan too; we are all walking the same road right now.
It is time to collaborate.
Electric Portobello,, Joy, Hope, Grace and Charity.
Absorbent lint,masking tape and joy.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Change/evolution and burlesque at cafe Ravenous
Heck no! he said. I aint changed I've evolved.
'I aint the man I was six months or a year ago; not because I changed myself but because shit happens and it affects you. I will be a different Rusty in six months time; I ain't got no control over that, it just happens.'
He went on to tell me:'I met a woman once, Babs was the name, I loved her good and she loved me. I told her straight though; I told her I aint gonna change and she said that was fine and dandy, let's proceed. Then she tried to change me; that got to me and I couldn't cope.'
'But women do that, they fall in love with potential then try to mould the man into their ideal. If only she had let me evolve I woulda turned into something else pretty fast through osmosis and capilliary love action, through just being close to her spiritually.'
'I ain't proud of my actions but I'm proud of what I have learnt and what I have become... Long may I evolve.'
You know I respect Rusty for that... He is evolving!
I hope Babs can forgive him too.
nurse Caz, Saki and silence
I shall not speak of her again.
Saturday 11 July 2009
The Tree
It is a small painting of a tree, a painting of a small tree. Nothing more than that… A sapling growing in a hedge in an anonymous landscape. It measures twelve inches by eight and is set in a good guilt frame.
I have always imagined that the tree was painted by my father, painted by my father before my birth (my birth that killed him) not far from the house where I was born.
When I imagine that picture now I see it as part of a much larger canvas and in that larger canvas to the left hand side stands a young boy, a twelve year old boy, watching the artist as he captures his subjects; both the tree and the young boy.
The artist is oblivious to the child.
I lost sight of the painting when I became alienated from my mother many years ago, I feared that it was lost to me, that it rested in some bric-a-brac shop in Antwerp or on some strangers wall. Misunderstood.
I have missed that painting dearly for most of my adult life; it was ‘home’. It was the father I killed, painting a tree.
And in my imagination he painted me into a corner.
Last week I saw my sister for the first time in many years, as we were about to part she informed me that she had something of mine in her attic. Mother had given it into her safe keeping for me many years ago.
It was the painting of course.
Thank you Honey.
Saturday 27 June 2009
Beat
In 1963 I went to a party in Chelsea with a good friend who threw shapes in a beat combo when he wasn't throwing off the shapes of his nightmares or shaping up a hangover.
I thought I was a beat poet at the time so could write shit shaped poetry like that
I had bought a new pair of sneakers that day and my bullet wounds were playing up; yeah I hung with Michael X or was it Malcolm?
I met a girl; an artist, her name was quickly forgotten but I remembered it that night... I was enthusiastic.
She could not take her eyes off my sneakers and I witnessed an idea growing.
I wonder what became of her?
I found the photograph in an old copy of IT.
There was a photograph of a naked girl in that 1960's magazine who was the spitting image of nurse Caz. I confronted her with the image and she soon confessed that it was her mother.
I now know why nurse Caz has a passion for starched white cotton and sensible shoes.
Nurse Caz being hit on by a lipstick lesbian.
Friday 26 June 2009
Chivalry and Cod Latin.
(Even when crying; normally a distasteful sight), as she sat sobbing under a hankerchief tree.
Of course I approached her and offered assistance, a shoulder, and anything else for that matter.
I asked why she cried so publicly. She replied that she wept because she could not reach the hankerchiefs that festooned the tree above her.
I smiled then and reaching up, plucked a starched white flower from above and offered it to her.
She snatched it from my hand, still sobbing. then turned and waved the handkerchief at a man standing in a window of the house opposite. 'I surrender, I surrender.' she screamed.
Moments later the door of the house opened and the most beautiful woman in the world flew into the bastards arms, He then wiped away her tears with a tissue of lies.
Sic biscuittus disintergrat!
Saturday 30 May 2009
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Betjeman, Haidoku and Carol vorderman
I am also an avid viewer of countdown repeats (the programme ended for me with the departure of Carol Vorderman) as well as an occasional sudoku do-er. I have tried to combine all three interests with a new verse form.
the Haidoku combines the rigid structure of the Haiku with the numerical content of the Sudoku; there must be three lines containing nine words, the words must be the numbers one to nine with no number repeated. The following is (I think) my best effort to date:
Carol Vorderman
One seven three
four... Six nine two
five. EIGHT!
Saturday 23 May 2009
Tap dancers, surgeons, soap and Frida Kahlo.
Friday 22 May 2009
Grayson Perry, Nicholas Serota and the Chelsea flower show
yesterday nurse Caz thought it a good idea to visit the Chelsea flower show... how wrong she was!
Nurse caz insisted on a wheel chair for the occasion; I was therefore wheeled through a seething mass of people with my head at arse height. I saw nothing of the show and soon became fractious. Nurse Caz bought some velcro plant ties which cheered me up a little.
Her stiletto heels sank into the ground whenever we tried to go off piste, resulting in me pushing the nurse in the wheel-chair much to the amusement of the County set!
I thought I saw Grayson Perry arm in arm with Nicholas Serota at one point but was mistaken; it was a couple from Tamworth. The likeness was uncanny though!
I had forgotten to take my camera with me but consoled myself once back home by photographing the fox-gloves nurse caz has planted for me in the garden.
Tuesday 19 May 2009
Nude wrestling and Mahler
Nurse Caz had beaten me to it. I found her in the snug sipping a pink gin, comforting herself with the nude wrestling scene in 'Women in love' on the video machine.
We got onto the subject of childhood memories. She recited the following poem:
The monster in my house
Creeping through the house one night
I hear the monster that goes hump
It isn’t in the sitting room (that place is quite a dump)
It isn’t in the kitchen
Nor in the little parlour
It isn’t in my brother’s room
Listening to Mahler.
I nearly catch it in the loo
Or at least I thought I did
When I go in I soon find out
That isn’t where it’s hid.
IT isn’t in the laundry room
Nor in the airing cupboard
And if it’s in my parents room
Then they are surely buggered.
Monday 11 May 2009
An Amanuensis speaks of unspeakable things
Nurse Caz has promised to wear her Junior red cross hygiene medal for the occasion.
A video exists of his 'gig' (horrible word) at Mesoteric in Hammersmith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJWfowdQo0&feature=channel_page
Friday 8 May 2009
Hygiene and wendy in bondage
Yesterday afternoon as I was leafing through a book of paintings by Tai-Shan Schierenberg (check him out) nurse Caz shimmered into my field of vision in her crisply starched uniform set off by a pair of pink kitten heeled mules. (I have been feigning deafness for some weeks now; obliging her to lean forwads in order to speak into my ear) She leant forward and the pendulous watch on her breast raced towards the cocktail hour.
'I have something special to show you Jannie.'
She took me by the hand and led me to her room, I sat on the edge of her bed as she went to a small set of drawers, rummaged briefly then turned and placed an object in my hand. I looked down as she said: 'My junior Red Cross hygiene medal.'
Such was my elation at having shared such an intimate moment with my muse that I immediately took her to greenkensal and bought her a charming print of Peter Pan tying Wendy to the mast.... www.greenkensal.co.uk
Thursday 7 May 2009
Fluentes Maiale.
Monday 27 April 2009
Cycling lessons with nurse Caz #1
Female pedestrian: 'Get a move on and let me cross the road!'
JN: 'Shut up you old bag!'
Female pedestrian: 'You are a nasty old man and I hope you fall off and die!'
JN: 'So do I!'
I am learning a lot about cycling.
Wednesday 22 April 2009
The Royal Academy of Arts
It was Babs who saved me from that madness on the ice. She had been touring the remote settlements on a PETRA initiative; trying to get the seal clubbers to give up their barbaric ways, she performed a routine in which she rid herself of seal pelts to reveal her luscious body all the while writhing to the music of the Pet Shop Boys. She caught sight of me at the bar of the Aurora saloon and sidled up at the end of her act. "I see you ain't lost it ". I said. She fluttered her eye-lashes and leaned into me, picked a piece of lint from my jacket and murmured: "What's Jannie been up to?"
These were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I cycled, accompanied by nurse Caz, to the Royal Academy.
Foolish as it may seem, at this late stage of my life I have taken up; like my father before me, the art of cycling. My bicycle is Dutch, naturally but I have refrained from painting it yellow fearing that it will be a yellow bicycle that will kill me in the end.
Monday 23 February 2009
Impulsive action photography
Impulsively I photographed 3 of the remaining 4 biscuits... What do you think?
Nurse Caz says that licking them hurts her tongue!
Thursday 19 February 2009
Fighting with Picasso (again)
Saturday 14 February 2009
Tits and photography
I opened the window and asked him what exposure and lens he was using.
He handed me a note which read: To whom it may concern. There is no point asking me anything; I have only just arrived here in the back of a refrigerated lorry!
Two frustrated tits sat in the tree eying the blocked bird feeder in an old fashioned way!
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Get along little dogie and the stolen Oscar.
I met John Voight when I was the colour stylist for the trippy party light show in 'midnight Cowboy'. I had recently shot myself in the foot while drunk with a good old boy called Roland Crater and as a result limped in a pronounced way. Dustin Hoffman stole my limp for the Ratso Rizzo character which won him an oscar! That Oscar should have been mine.
My foot after the plastic surgery to correct the two bullet wounds. The oversized 2nd toe is a result of the repair done using a rib removed from Cher. (I only have one musical bone in my body; it hums 'Gypsies, tramps and thieves' in cold weather)
'Get along little dogie' was the song that John sang in the shower at the beginning of the film.
Sunday 8 February 2009
Nieupjur's declaration of intent.
EVERYTHING MUST BE MEMORABLE.
Tuesday 3 February 2009
Moules Mariniere
Dear Jan,
London is becoming less intimidating, my social life improves daily and I no longer spend my evenings at the stage door waiting for a glimpse of Babs as she leaves with yet another handsome boy on her arm.
I have met a charming young English girl named Caz, she is a nurse presently looking after a mad Dutch Artist and writer who seems to live in a world of his own. I must say I am greatly taken by the starched white uniform (a far cry from the flour dusted gingham chaps of Lula Mae) and highly polished brogues.
For her first visit to my little home from home I made her moules mariniere: I sweated onions in my largest saucepan and then added crushed garlic and finely chopped celery. When this was cooked I added half a bottle of white wine which then came to the boil, at this point I tipped in the mussels and slammed on the lid with a dramatic Kerrang.
When the mussels had all opened (a matter of a few minutes) I removed them to a large bowl. I added some cream and chopped parsley to the cooking liquor, brought it to the boil then poured it over the mussels and served them simply with crusty bread and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. This I find is a deliciously lascivious meal and breaks down many barriers!
After we had eaten I sang Abdul el Bulbul Emir and later still she went off to pee in a bottle leaving me to think.
Best regards
Rusty
what to do, what to do? Is this some ghastly joke or purely coincidence. I have grown very fond of the starched beauty of Caz and would be devastated should I lose her to that uncouth rodeo-clown.
I am so distraught that I cannot concentrate on selecting my lottery numbers and fear I may be filling in the ticket with the wrong coloured pen... It is a yellow one and I am haunted by the death rattle of my fathers bicycle on those far off cobbles.
Sunday 1 February 2009
Inanimate humanism and the things I know about my mother.
Printed on the plynth is the legend: YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO OPEN THIS!
When the front of the house is opened one is presented with an interior covered in photographs of man's worst attrocities to his fellow man; Images of war, the holocaust and murder!
I originally intended to fill the work with raw liver which I had bought in Droitwich but Mona stole it and fed it to her dog Retch.
Saturday 31 January 2009
Tala Madani, Madame Zingara and a rebel yell.
The day started innocuously enough, I had knocked off a spoon painting which pleased me greatly when nurse Caz informed me that I was to accompany her to a gallery in the West End (whenever I use the word west I think of Ruislip now) where we were to look at the work of Iranian-American painter Tala Madani; she produces politically charged humorous canvases and I paticularly enjoyed those that utilised the enema bag!
I was pleased to notice a white Ant chair in the lavatory!
At this point the day started to go pear shaped resulting in me finding myself seated at a table for eight in a velvet tent eating beef in a chocolate sauce with nurse Caz to one side and a natural redhead to the other. The redhead and I shared a passion for smoking unlike the nurse who smoulders when I spark up (she is the tinder to the camp-fire of life).
As we ate a troupe of Motley dressed South Africans performed syncronised dangling (girl on girl) and ladyboy contortionism (memories of Lingling (I'd forgotten that she is still in the cupboard under the stairs)) fat ladies sang and bearded men in dresses roller-skated between the tables. More fat ladies sang and still it wasn't over.
Nurse Caz gave a rebel yell; particularly liking the trousers worn by one of the male danglers and went on to inform me that he looked like a Goan hippy! Fat ladies sang again and it still wasn't over.
Suddenly I found myself in a lime green stetson swaying to the timeless abuse of 80's disco. Then it was over, I cannot recal if the fat lady sang again.
We all parted in the car-park under the table legs of Battersea power station.
I refuse to mention the drinking straw in the shape of a penis other than to remark: "So that's what they look like".
Friday 30 January 2009
Annie Leibovitz and West Ruislip.
Annies photographs never fail to move me with their blistering honesty and integrity, the images of Susan Sontag's final years were particularly touching.
Leibovitz's formal images of military chiefs however left me as unmoved as the stiff shirts photographed. I have seen the Demi Moore pregnant thing too many times to be anything other than a nodding acquaintance. The swagger portrait of Daniel Day Lewis on the other hand smacked me soundly on the forehead with a base-ball bat!
All in all it was excellent and I was almost completely distracted from the crisp white uniform of nurse Caz.
On the underground railway home I suggested we go to West Ruislip as the train we boarded was going there too (I am a great believer that tubes are like life and one must always travel as far as possible) Caz said 'probably' which was a tad too enigmatic for my hangover to stomach.
Friday 23 January 2009
Morocco, Modigliani and lesbian tea.
One fine spring morning he came to visit me in my studio in Paris. Mona was with me sitting for the series of aural portraits that was to cause such uproar the following year. Mona's sister Jeanne Hebuterne was there, helping to vacuum pack the work. Jeanne and Modi hit it off immediately and were soon lost somewhere deep inside each other, they became inseparable over the next few weeks and, sensing disaster, I decided to take the love lorn artist on a trip to North Africa.
Marrakesh stunned Modigliani; the heat, the colour, the smells, the horny chicks. He became wild with enthusiasm over the tribal art from south of the Sahara on sale in the souk; his style changed overnight when I suggested he paint me in that manner!
I introduced him to Paul Bowles who was living there at that time trying to write a novel (he was stuck for a title until I greeted him with: 'Good to see you so well Paul, under a sheltering sky'.) Paul gave us cups of verveine (lesbian tea he called it) and served sweetmeats from brightly coloured plates and bowls. I still have one of those bowls the glaze worn away in places from the constant rubbing of fingers scooping out the last of the couscous!
Modesty forbids me from describing the action in the brothels but needless to say the local version of Abdul el Bulbul Emir contains verses celebrating our visit.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Notes written with a noisy pen.
This time of year always reminds me of Eddie and his sense of playful humour, his love of advocaat and his beautiful muse Mona. One January (the year escapes me now; the Altzheimers is as pernicious as my mothers arthritic hip) I called in on him as he worked on a series of drawings of Mona standing on some kind of causeway, her face hideously disfigured by a deafening silent wail.
'What is this all about Eddie'. I had asked. 'Oh' he had replied 'It is ever thus these days! As you know Jan, Muses may travel backwards and forwards through time, something to do with particle physics I think. Mona has recently been in the 21st century working with some British guy who seems more butcher than artist. She returned with that look on her face and whenever I question her about it all she will say is that she has seen the 'future of Art'!... I guess it must be pretty horrible!'
'What do you think of the sketches?' he asked.
'It's a scream Edvard. But at least no-one will ever want to steal them!'
Friday 12 December 2008
Piper at the gates of dawn.
I know I am truly happy when I buy apricot jam. I cannot remember the taste of apricot jam.
I dream of a knock on my door, upon opening it I find my muse; Mona Hebuterne, standing there with nothing but a jar of confiture and the smell of pine forests and the sea.
Wednesday 26 November 2008
Barking on thin ice in search of Abstract Depressionism.
Some time after the incident during which Jackson Pollock splattered my yellow bicycle with black paint (the yellow bicycle that killed my father): http://jannieupjur.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/abstract-depressionism-jackson-pollock.html I noticed that the black was beginning to deteriorate in places leaving traces of the underlying yellow. This observation started the process which led in due course to my principles of Abstract Depressionism.
Returning to my studio after a bleak period of ceiling gazing I found a can of thick bituminous paint which I used to over paint the entire body of work from my earlier psychedelic/spherist phase where I had been experimenting with the new petroleum based pigments then becoming available. As a result of this 'expetrimentation' the works were both bright and colourful and reminiscent of a child's first contact with a crayon box. The thick black paint soon put a stop to that!
Mood # 27.
Monday 17 November 2008
Friday 7 November 2008
Picasso and the anguish of sponges
'Analytic Spherism'. I replied... Picasso took notes in a little book.
In the 1930's I shared a studio briefly with Pablo in Paris. I have to admit that the clash of egos led to us soon going our own ways. One drunken evening Pablo was determined to demonstrate his skills as a matador, to that end we needed a bull; thinking quickly I removed the saddle and handlebars from my fathers yellow bicycle (the bicycle that killed him) and wired them together to make a very acceptable bulls head with which I proceeded to chase the little Spaniard about the studio. One or two veronicas later he tired and I managed to gore him nicely on the thigh producing a plentiful stream of blood. Dora Maar turned up and while bandaging the wound she demanded that I should leave.
I forgot to take my bicycle parts such was my keenness to go! I often wonder what happened to them.
One thing I did learn from Picasso was: Never trust a vegetarian who has a sponge in the bathroom. They are dead ANIMALS!
Francis Bacon and the future
Sunday 19 October 2008
Frieze... But is it art...
As I stolled through 'Frieze' last week a chill cut me to the bone.
I came away from the thing feeling depressed and dissappointed Yet at the same time I was elated by the fact that, as I inspected the fornicating, gold plated pigs, my muse (Mona Hebuterne) had sashayed up to me, giggled, and whispered in my ear. Showing me the direction I must now take.
Some of the pieces on show were good, some were even very good but they were in a small minority. surrounding this nucleus of work by established (Old School even) Artists was a bish bash bosh of dross. an assemblage of the most tawdry, lazy and crass objects I'd ever care to shake a stick at. One enormous tin of poo. It reminded me of nothing more than the wind blown detritus in a roadside hedge. This is when Mona opened my eyes to what I was looking at; this was not Art, this was at best a collection of half resolved observations on the state of art today, a drunken 'undergraduate' discussion informed by todays obsession with 'why' rather than 'what'.
Teachers in Art schools have become preoccupied with the thought processes with little interest in the quality of the finished work. The journey is all important, the destination irrelevant. Sadly what I saw leads me to believe that most of todays 'Art Travellers' are bogged down in a scuzzy camp-site in an unknown land.
It is not the fault of the artists. The blame must be equally shared between the cynical Art establishment and those that teach students to believe the hype. A fraction of Art school graduates have got what it takes to achieve even a mediocre greatness and they are being churned out lacking even the basic skills that might allow them to work in the commercial sector.
Is it a coincidence that a great number of young british Artists live and work in Hackney? their work is certainly hackneyed!
At Frieze one of the works on show was a large piece of old rope snaking accross the floor... Yes, they wanted money for it!