The Word, November 2010: Difference between revisions
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Books | Books | ||
Truthfully, I don't read much. I don't have the lifestyle to concentrate on great works | Truthfully, I don't read much. I don't have the lifestyle to concentrate on great works of literature. People don't believe me when I say that and they think it's an affectation. The two books I've chosen are both pictorial. The first is called ''The Wonderful World Of Albert Kahn'', which is a compendium of colour plates commissioned by this man, Khan, a French industrialist. In 1908 he set out with his chauffeur — I love that part of it, ''his chauffeur'' — to take colour frames, which was then a very new process. He went on to try and make a kind of inventory of mankind. He had connections in China and Japan, all over the world; he took pictures of French soldiers at leisure behind the lines; he sent a woman to the west of Ireland and photographed people in the Arens, a way of life that has completely disappeared. He also put a camera on the Champs-Elysees and took pictures of people just walking around — the idea of not posing for a photo was completely new. These pictures are really shocking — they're from a time when you don't expect colours to be revealed, except in paintings. The shades of people's clothes are so much more extreme than you'd imagine. | ||
The other book is a collection of graphic novels made in woodcuts in the 19303 by a man called Lynd Ward. It's called ''Vertigo'' — three stories interlocking, set in 1937 in the Great Depression, about the lives and fates of a young girl, an industrialist and a young boy. Ward was very much of the left of that time; you might say his books are social and spiritual comment and he has a lot in common with other kinds of pictorial storytelling like William Blake. The beauty of the individual woodcuts is such that tiny details continue to reveal themselves every time you look. | The other book is a collection of graphic novels made in woodcuts in the 19303 by a man called Lynd Ward. It's called ''Vertigo'' — three stories interlocking, set in 1937 in the Great Depression, about the lives and fates of a young girl, an industrialist and a young boy. Ward was very much of the left of that time; you might say his books are social and spiritual comment and he has a lot in common with other kinds of pictorial storytelling like William Blake. The beauty of the individual woodcuts is such that tiny details continue to reveal themselves every time you look. | ||
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Music | Music | ||
At the moment I really like "I Like My Mice (Dead)" by Mildred, a single on Third Man | At the moment I really like "I Like My Mice (Dead)" by Mildred, a single on Third Man Records. I still like the idea of singles, when you just have that one record and that's as far as it goes. Mildred is a person, it would appear from the picture on the cover, and that's all I know. Jack White produced it; it sounds immediate and it sounds beautiful. I ''love'' Mildred. I also love the album ''En Couleurs'' by a group called Feufollet — the track I like in particular is "Au Fond Du Lac." They're from, I believe, Abbeville, Louisiana; I met a couple of them at a show this spring when I was playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans. There's quite a lot of traditional music down there — Cajun music — but what's interesting is they're young kids, so they've got a sense of the tradition but they've also got their own ideas. This sounds like a new kind of rock and roll. They sing everything in French — great melodies, three singers, accordion and everything-but there's also electric guitar. There's an artistry to it that enables them to step out from time and place and tradition. It's one of the most beautifully melodic records I've heard all year. | ||
Revision as of 13:14, 4 May 2015
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