A short post on a trip to the Kaleidoscope club

Kaleidoscope is a monthly contemporary classical event which takes place on the night I work late, so I do not get to it much. When I am there I always end up stuck on the duff seats at the back and say to myself "I really will come along early next time".

The last time I was there was back in June, which is ages ago. There were a number of things on that night, details of which you can see on the Kaleidoscope website here.

For me the event had two highlights. One of these was the performance by two visiting New Zealanders, Rob Cunningham and Horomona Hora. They began by doing a version of the Haka, that camp yet threatening dance the NZ rugger buggers do to intimidate their opponents. I was intimidated but also excited at getting to see it done in real life, something I had never expected to happen as wild horses could not get me near a game of rugby. Then they played music that seemed to draw heavily from Maori traditional stuff, with Mr Hora in fetching ethnic garb.

The other great thing was a piece called Strange Country, in which Kimberly Campanello read poetry about Sheelagh-na-Gigs (grotesque carvings of women exposing their lady parts often found on very old Christian churches in Ireland and elsewhere) to uilleann pipe music composed by Benjamin Dwyer and performed by Donnacha Dwyer. I am famous for my dislike of poetry, but something of this really clicked for me. I think it was Campanello's steady tone of voice and the intriguing and allusive nature of her content that made it work so well with the music.

Sheelagh na Gig image source (and Wikipedia article on this subject)

Strange Country image source

Where were you at the time of the crime?

In other news, the poet Adrian Mitchell appears to have died. I decided years ago that I don't hold with poetry, but I retained a soft spot for the couple of Mitchell's poems that came my way in school. 'Nostalgia - now threepence off' touched a chord with me, with its evocation of the vanished children's culture of yesteryear. He also seems to have adapted the English language version of Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade. Mitchell's great achievement, for me, was his poem 'Tell Me Lies About Vietnam', apparently first read out at an anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square. It is a masterpiece of invective, a work that took on a new lease of life during Bush and Blair's adventure in Iraq. As a tribute to the late Adrian Mitchell, I am now going to post that poem here in its entirety, until such time as his estate track me down and make me remove it:



I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
            So stick my legs in plaster
            Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain, 
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
             So fill my ears with silver
             Stick my legs in plaster
             Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
              So coat my eyes with butter
              Fill my ears with silver
              Stick my legs in plaster
              Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
              So stuff my nose with garlic
              Coat my eyes with butter
              Fill my ears with silver
              Stick my legs in plaster
              Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
              So chain my tongue with whisky
              Stuff my nose with garlic
              Coat my eyes with butter
              Fill my ears with silver
              Stick my legs in plaster
              Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
             So scrub my skin with women,
             Chain my tongue with whisky
             Stuff my nose with garlic
             Coat my eyes with butter
             Fill my ears with silver
             Stick my legs in plaster
             Tell me lies about Vietnam.

(poetry and HTML code from here )

Nightmare Before Christmas 2007, Sunday: John Cooper Clarke

(Centre Stage)

Mr Clarke is one of those punk poet fellows, though part of his act was oddly reminiscent of the kind of act you get in Working Mens' Clubs. I'm thinking about when he did a saucy strip-tease all the crazy jokes he was telling. All those man-comes-home-from-work-early* jokes… they sounded like they were as old as the hills, yet I had never heard them before (indeed, I had never heard of this category of jokes before, but then I am a stranger to the world of humour). But he did some punk poetry stuff too, most notably doing the well-known 'Beesley Street' and then doing it again as the gentrified 'Beesley Boulevard'. So yeah, very enjoyable, though I gather this was just a truncated version of the set he always does.

Image source



*As in – A man comes home from work early, to find one of his mates shagging his wife. He grabs his mate, kicks the crap out of him and throws him out of the house. The wife then says "You'll have no friends left if you carry on like that."