Super Tuesday and I am holding my breath...

I wish I could vote in this election I really do!
But mostly of course in November that is the crucial one.
Whatever the outcome tonight it will be historic and the main thing is to have a democratic candidate that will win in Nov.

Commit random acts of kindness

Triple Whammy

Todays birthdays are the triple whammy of:
Philip Glass, Derek Jarman and Johnny Rotten. All I can add is WOW!
Glassworks is my favourite album by PG and it was an early one.
If you get a chance do listen to it. I have been enjoying his music for thirty years now! That is another WOW!
Derek Jarman was an extraordinary creative person, his films, writings, set designs and his garden in Dungeness at Prospect Cottage are all amazing. If it was not an overused term I would say he was a "renaissance man". There will be an exhibition in February at the Serpentine, London of his work and it is curated by Isaac Julien. Do look out for it!
And John Lydon...well nevermind does he need any comment at all? The dogs bollocks to many and more.
(If you read the Guardian, do tell me that "my" birthdays are better!)

This is for Paulo my dear friend

CLAUDE CAHUN
I just saw Paul over the weekend and he talked about an exhibition titled Strange Events Permit Themselves the Luxury of Occurring which he had seen at CAC (Camden Arts Center) in London. He was particularly interested in having discovered the work of Claude Cahun and wanted to see more. So here goes!
I have researched her life and work over the years since I came to know her photographs through Surrealist exhibitions like Mirror Images at MIT List Visual Arts Centre several years ago. The catalogue is very informative.
She also worked closely with her partner. This work is still very current in terms of representations of identity and sexuality and I think it is a precursor to the work of Francesca Woodman, although she may not actually have known of it, and Cindy Sherman.

Links - a few words

Under the heading of Links in the right hand column of this blog I have listed those links which I have found of interest over this past year. If you think you know some that may be interesting to me from what you can tell by looking at DJANG please do leave the link as a comment. See below. I can then look them up in my own time and possibly add them.
Most of the links are art related and I hope you enjoy browsing them!
The most recent are at the top.

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag photographed by Peter Hujar.
She was born today in 1933 in NYC, although she grew up in Tucson, Arizona. She went to university in Chicago later returning to NYC.
Thirty years ago I read a great deal of SS when I was at art school/college; On Photography, Against Interpretation, Illness as Metaphor etc.
Later when I lived in NYC I saw her around; at the cinema, and the theatre, all downtown of course.
She was/is a very readable intellectual and I felt comfortable and stimulated with and by her books and ideas.
I am not "an intellectual" as such although I am interested in ideas.
Sontag, Bachelard, Daumal, Irigaray, Berger et al were the food for thought at the time I was a student. Sontag followed me through my continued life and I read and re-read her work until quite recently.
After she died I learned so much more about her personal life than when she was alive. I am not certain I wanted or even needed to know. Privacy is so rare to have and to keep these days. Not that it matters when you are dead I suppose. But it matters to me when I am left behind.
Is it knowing someone when you hear about their daily life or is it knowing someone when you read their work? Everyone has a day to day existence, not everyone writes good books. Although I am not saying it has to be mutually exclusive of course.
One thing I remember distinctly when she was interviewed by Terry Gross for NPR when her novel the Volcano Lover came out was that she said "Beauty was important to her".
Beauty as in beautiful people.
I thought about it for myself and realised beauty is very important to me also, but mainly in the landscape which surrounds me. That is very crucial to my well-being.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Below with son Dexter Scott.

Born today in 1929. Thank you for living your life like you did to the full.