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NOISECONTROLLERS - INTERVIEW
I don’t know how I feel about it now other than the anatomy is a little weird (which is to be expected from my art these days because I seem to have forgotten how to draw properly rip) but when I finished it I thought it was pretty lit.
Special thanks to @Lacza on deviantart for allowing me to use their graphic in the background here www.deviantart.com/lacza/art/Noisecontrollers-282016605
My interview with Fujifilm for Stocksy United:
fujifilm-blog.com/2018/02/28/introducing-stocksy-photogra...
via Painters' Table - Contemporary Art Magazine: Daily Painting Links on Artist Blogs, Painting Blogs and Art Websites ift.tt/1XpoDpB
Few months ago, I made an interview of the excellent french drawer & musician MCBESS.
Interview is available on the inevitable french blog SOME COOL STUFF.
At the end of our long conversation, I asked him if he was ok to make a little dedication... and here it is baby !
Click HERE to view the big size.
“Shooting film and riding steel framed bikes; the life I wanted but never knew existed”. That pretty much sums up today’s interviewee, Andrew MacGregor, a photograher who has found himself somewhere in between shooting large format and yard sale junkers.
A supremely interesting...
emulsive.org/interviews/i-am-andrew-macgregor-and-this-is...
#Interview
With the awesome, one and only Susie G! pikaland.com/2009/05/27/artist-interview-susie-ghahremani...
www.recyclart.org/2015/12/recycled-art-interview-6-cindy-...
We continue our series of posts interviewing "recycled art" crafters & artists. This week, we interviewed Cindy Fortin from the blog Upcycled Design Lab as she is one of our active crafters and she bring nice ideas from all kind of materials to the Recyclart community. If you think you deserve to be featured in the next interview, please, drop us an email.
Tell us a little more about you? Who you are? Where are you from?
Hi my name is Cindy. I live in the beautiful state of Colorado with a wonderful guy two dogs and a cat. For several years I worked in corporate America but for the past 10 years I have enjoyed part time employment and more time to pursue things I enjoy.
Why do you craft?
The short answer is it keeps me sane. It is the best therapy I know of.
How did you learn?
My mother taught me to sew and my father made me all kinds of great toys and Halloween Costumes when I was kid. I also like to experiment.
Since when are you working with recycled & upcycled materials?
I guess I have been upcycling since I was a kid. I can remember making puppet heads from empty ivory soap bottles. I also made my prom dress from the fabric that was used on the sets from one of our high school plays.
What are your can’t-live-without essentials?
Not sure but I do find myself using E6000 glue on a lot of projects. :)
How would you describe your style? Are there any crafters/artists/designers that you particularly look up to?
I would describe my style as Upcycling 101. I like to use my imagination and work with lots of different materials. Most of my projects are easy to intermediate skill level and don't require a lot a specialty tools or training. I also like to use common items so that others can easily duplicate the projects.
How is your workspace, how do you make it inspiring?
I tend to work all over the house. I am lucky enough to have a room dedicated to crafting and creating but most of the time my projects tend to spill out into other rooms.
What sorts of things are inspiring you right now? Where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by things I need or want. If I need something I try to figure out a way to make it with things I have on hand.
When do you feel the most creative?
At night I tend to fall asleep designing projects in my head.
We live in such a mass-produced, buy-it-now society. Why should people continue to make things by hand?
Creating and making things is part of human nature. I think that sustainable living and DIY are only getting started.
We follow your work since a long time and we saw that you work with different kind of materials, do you have a favorite medium to work with?
I don't really have a favorite medium. I like to cut, paste, hammer, sew, melt, mix, paint, dye, mold, tear, bleach, stain, bend, disassemble and reassemble things.
What are your tips for people who'd like to start crafting?
Make time for it and dive in.
What is your favorite thing to do (other than crafting)?
I enjoy reading, hiking and working on my blog.
Thanks a lot Cindy for this interview! :)
To see all the posts by Cindy, it's here.
Jetzt, wo du endlich die Universität absolviert hast, ist es an der Zeit, dir einen anständigen Job zu verschaffen, damit du die volle Unabhängigkeit genießen kannst. Eine unabhängige Frau ist doch eine sexy Frau, oder? Mit diesem gesagt, Sie werden jedes Interview, das Sie gehen, ass, so d...
coolideen.com/2018/08/14/was-man-zu-einem-job-interview-t...
Como foi a sua infância?
Ryuuji: Bem... Eu não diria que foi uma infância normal pra uma criança...
Mas... enfim, o meu pai sempre foi muito rígido, aulas disso aulas daquilo... artes marciais, etiqueta, música... ¬¬'
Eu nunca fui a escola normal como as outras crianças, nem os meus irmãos só as minhas irmãs, e eu u não gostava muito dos meus tutores...
Eu sempre arranjava briga com as crianças da minha idade e até maiores, e levantava a saia das meninas e das minhas professoras...
Eu: nossa...
2 - Se você pudesse voltar no tempo e mudar alguma coisa, o que seria?
Ryuuji: Eu não gosto muito de ficar lembrando... passo...
3 - Quanto você pesa?
Ryuuji: Sei lá, deveria saber?
Eu: Sim...
4 - Alguma vez você já amou e perdeu?
Ryuuji: Acho que não...
5 - O que você faz para ganhar a vida e por quê?
Ryuuji: Recebo dinheiro dos meus pais...
6 - Que tipo de música você gosta?
Ryuuji: J-Rock e Metal
7 - Quantos anos você tem?
Ryuuji: Mais do que você imagina...
8 - Qual é a coisa mais irritante do mundo?
Ryuuji: O Alan estudando pra prova da faculdade.
Alan: Como se isso te afetasse em alguma coisa...
Ryuuji: Afeta sim, você fica muito chato e não me dá atenção.
Alan: Como se eu fosse obrigado a te dar atenção...
Ryuuji: É obrigado sim, você é meu melhor amigo...
Alan: Melhor amigo, e não babá...
9 - Qual é a sua palavra favorita?
Ryuuji: Nunca parei pra pensar...
Eu: É melhor você nem pensar, deve ser a mais obscena possível...
10 - Você tem algum hobby interessante?
Ryuuji: Apertar bundas
Eu: Isso não é um hobby
Ryuuji: é sim U.U
11 - Qual é a coisa mais romântica que alguém já fez por você?
Ryuuji: Que eu considere romântica... Nada.
Eu sou muito exigente ÙuUy
12 - Como você relaxar no final de um longo dia?
Ryuuji: Eu gosto de ficar deitado no colo do Alan com uma coberta e assistindo tv :3
Alan: Você é pesado e as minhas pernas ficam dormentes ¬¬'
Ryuuji: Mas pra mim é confortável, isso que importa ~.^
Alan: ¬¬'''''''''''
13 - Você tem obsessões?
Ryuuji: Eu diria que eu sou um pouco obcecado pelos meus dois irmãozinhos (Keiko e Kaoru).
Não que eu não goste das minhas irmãs...*fala baixinho meio pensativo* mas ultimamente eu ando um pouco obcecado por outra pessoa .... É, além dos meus irmãos acho que não...
Eu: Tem certeza?
Ryuuji: eu não diria que sexo é uma obsessão... Tá mais pra uma.... Diversão frequente... 8D
Eu: e.e e bota frequente nisso...
14 - Qual é a sua nacionalidade?
Ryuuji: Japonês
15 - Que idiomas você fala?
Ryuuji: Depende do lugar que eu estou, me adapto a qualquer idioma...
16 - Se você pudesse ter qualquer animal de estimação no mundo, o que seria?
Ryuuji: Uma onça
17 - Qual é a coisa mais aleatória que você se encontrar fazendo todos os dias?
Ryuuji: Eu durmo...
18 - Favoritos, rápido, vai! Livro, filme , jogo, bebida, cor?
Ryuuji: Não gosto de ler, a não ser revistas pornô Interessantes, American pie (todos), jogos de corrida e GTA, Qualquer bebida alcoólica , preto e dourado
19 - Qual é a coisa mais sentimental que você possui e por quê?
Ryuuji: A minha mãe me deu um colar de chave, ela disse que era pra eu colocar todos os meus sentimentos e dar pra pessoa que eu amo... Mas isso jé faz uns cento e poucos anos e até hoje eu não encontrei alguém que eu realmente amo... Ela vive me ligando pra perguntar se eu achei... ¬¬''
Isso pode ser considerado sentimental?
Eu: Hum, pode...
20 - Você está em um relacionamento?
Ryuuji: Não...
21 - Qual foi a sua pior lesão?
Ryuuji: Sei lá, foram muitas...
22 - O que te assusta mais?
Ryuuji: Sei lá... o Alan irritado e.e''''
23 - Algo que a maioria das pessoas não sabe sobre você?
Ryuuji: Que eu consigo ser romântico e carinhoso?
Eu: Eu não consigo imaginar isso cara...
24 - Você tem algum animal de estimação?
Ryuuji: Não, eu diria que eu gosto de ser o bichinho de estimação *Mostra a língua* ~.^
Eu: e.e'' então eu vou colocar uma focinheira em você...
25 - O que você acha desta entrevista?
Ryuuji: Interessante... mas eu acabei perdendo o programa de garotas de biquíni
Eu: ¬¬''''
Taggeados:
Na tag do Kaoru AQUI
Ms Skolnick being interviewed by local newscaster about the extension of Shillmans famous January Coat Sale due to the impending snow storms coming to Washington DC.
Ms Skolnick started the interview by saying, "Hello my Shillman customers" as she smiled at the camera. When asked about being a dowdy store and how sales were, Ms Skolnick gave the interviewer kinda a sharp edge of her tounge and went on to say that sales were way up.
Ok, vamos lá,
Explicação beijos: Aí na foto é o Keiko fantasiado, o Kaoru ta desmontado por causa da merda do obitsu dele que fica toda hora abrido e eu to pensando num jeito de resolver esse problema, e eu ja estou de saco cheio daquela joça do corpinho dele que é lindo maravilhoso, que nunca dá problema e não existe corpo melhor, só está fazendo manutenção de rotina pra ver se está tudo bem ^w^y
A Isa Taggeou o Kao-chan, Ryuuji, Tsuki e Kamuizinho, Obrigada *u*
Mais tarde eu posto as outras <3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 - Como foi a sua infância?
Kaoru: A minha infância até que foi tolerável... Apesar do meu pai ser bem rígido...
Eu e os meus irmãos não íamos á escola como as outras crianças, a gente estudava em casa... Quando eu vim pra cá e me matriculei na faculdade eu fiquei animado pra saber como era o ambiente universitário... Mas acho que assa animação já passou TT^TT
2 - Se você pudesse voltar no tempo e mudar alguma coisa, o que seria?
Kaoru: Acho que eu não deixaria o Kei-chan conhecer a Chise... *suspira*
Como eu odeio aquela desgraça piolhenta. ¬^¬
3 - Quanto você pesa?
Kaoru: Acho que 68-70Kg
4 - Alguma vez você já amou e perdeu?
Kaoru: Não, mas eu me sinto como se tivesse perdido a coisa mais preciosa que existe... O sorriso do meu irmão... Ç^Ç
Culpa da Chise lombriga de maçã...
Eu: Maçã tem lombriga e.e?
Kaoru: Não sei, mas ela é uma...
5 - O que você faz para ganhar a vida e por quê?
Kaoru: Eu sou sustentado pelos meu pais...'-'
6 - Que tipo de música você gosta?
Kaoru: Clássica e J-music
7 - Quantos anos você tem?
Kaoru: A mesma idade do meu irmão 8D
Eu: Vocês estão de brincadeira comigo né?
*suspira* 17 anos e pronto...
8 - Qual é a coisa mais irritante do mundo?
Kaoru: A Chise...
Chise: Eu não sou uma coisa... ¬¬''
Kaoru: Claro que é... Uma Vassoura de piaçava...
Chise: ¬¬'''' Idiota...
9 - Qual é a sua palavra favorita?
Kaoru: "Capenga" 83
10 - Você tem algum hobby interessante?
Kaoru: Fazer bolos ^.^y
11 - Qual é a coisa mais romântica que alguém já fez por você?
Kaoru: Sei lá, nunca prestei atenção xD
Eu: Nossa... Ta pior que eu...
12 - Como você relaxar no final de um longo dia?
Kaoru: Eu gosto de tomar um banho bem quentinho e derreter dentro da banheira ^w^
Eu: Isso por que não é você que paga as contas... ¬¬'''''''''
13 - Você tem obsessões?
Kaoru: Algumas, mas eu tenho vergonha de falar >//////<
14 - Qual é a sua nacionalidade?
Kaoru: Eu sou Japonês :3
15 - Que idiomas você fala?
Kaoru: Me adapto a qualquer idioma...
16 - Se você pudesse ter qualquer animal de estimação no mundo, o que seria?
Kaoru: Gatos =*w*=
17 - Qual é a coisa mais aleatória que você se encontrar fazendo todos os dias?
Kaoru: Fazendo trancinha no cabelo do Keiko XD
18 - Favoritos, rápido, vai! Livro, filme , jogo, bebida, cor?
Kaoru: Casper - O gato viajante, Garfield, LittleBigPlanet, Azul.
19 - Qual é a coisa mais sentimental que você possui e por quê?
Kaoru: Eu não sei se eu tenho algo do tipo...
20 - Você está em um relacionamento?
Kaoru: Não
21 - Qual foi a sua pior lesão?
Kaoru: Acho que foi quando eu e o Kei-chan ficou bravo e me arranhou, eu quase perdi o meu braço... Ó^Ò
Eu: e.e'' gatos-demônios... Saiam de perto de mim...
Kaoru: *Modo propaganda* A nossa família tem um grande diferencial, nós machos não temos a cauda bifurcada apenas as fêmeas 8D
Eu: ¬^¬' O que isso tem a ver?
Kaoru: Sei lá, deu vontade de falar '-'
22 - O que te assusta mais?
Kaoru: O Kei-chan irritado e pensar no casamento dele com aquela KENGA.
Credo >.< Me da arrepios...
23 - Algo que a maioria das pessoas não sabe sobre você?
Kaoru: Que quase todas as noites eu e o Keiko... *interrompido*
Eu: ISSO NINGUÉM PRECISA SABER!!!!!! *dá um chute no Kaoru*
Kaoru: X^X Eu gosto de dormir com pijama de flanela... *cai no chão*
24 - Você tem algum animal de estimação?
Kaoru: Muitos gatos :3
25 - O que você acha desta entrevista?
Kaoru: Legal, apesar de ter levado um chute...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taggeados:
Midori do Mundo
Finnian, Lucius e Kamui da Jéssica
Alécia, Cyclone e Raffaello da Andréia
I've been tagging my dolls, and quite often come across a doll or two I have never photographed. The Interview Silkstone Barbie is one of them.
I am delighted to be featured in a French blog of Ben, which you can read via the links below. Both French and English versions are available.
English version:
www.tudiscaparcequetesfache.com/james-yeung-2/
French version:
www.tudiscaparcequetesfache.com/james-yeung/
Again thank you for all the inspirations from you guys!
Well, it went rather well so let’s see what the outcome is! Nice Iced Mocha in the Sun with a friend in one of my old favourite haunts for afters. Hope you are all having a pleasant day/eve/night x
Today after work my friend and me went to the Christmas Market and for my luck I had camera, :) because in the one corner of market was small "TV Interview" or "Show" with German TV presenter and actress Nina Eichinger and Argentine-Italian schlager singer Semino Rossi and "Unknown" woman...was quite funny to watch on this process...and this is some of my paparazzi shots ;)
I hope you will enjoy it.
Have a wonderful evening dear friends!
7
“Hi hello, I’d like to welcome you to our seventh Dolly interview.
My next guest is very pretty. I hope she doesn’t steal my job. She seems to be one of the most put together dolls that we have seen so far.
I don’t know her name, but she has on a beautiful dress, perfect face and wait till you see these curls on the back of her head!”
Curly
“ I do pride myself on my beautiful curls.”
Interviewer
“Perfect! Then I shall call you Curly!”
Curly
“Wasn’t that the name of one of the Three Stooges?”
Interviewer
“Uh, why yes, yes it was, but even though he was a short bald man and you are a fancy antique Dolly with tons of hair, that is the name we are going with. Speaking of fancy, do I see the faint hints of a manicure? And pedicure?”
Curly
“Well, yes. It does get quite boring in the dolly case . . . we have to do something to pass the time.”
Interviewer
“But where on earth would you get nail polish?”💅
Curly
“Well, I don’t want to shock anyone, but Mo does get in quite a few bar fights, so if she comes home with a bloody nose . . . well we didn’t want anything to go to waste . . . “
Interviewer
“Great Scott! I’m gobsmacked! I had no idea things were so morbid and gross in the dolly case!”
Everything to do with Sex Show 2019 - Interview 1 - Isabelle Babe (4K)
Interviewer: Dom Davidson (Instagram: @ddavidsonportfolio)
Video: TorontoJack (Instagram: @cosplay)
Model: Isabelle Babe (Instagram: @Isabelle_Babe92)
Had an interview this morning at the green bus as my shoulder is geting no better so am having to look at going on the buses and forgeting the coach game for now. Seen parked on Hill Street is S881BYJ a Daf ND250 / Optare Spectra . So this week could well be my last week in the coach industry for the time being as time to face up to the fact i am having to stop doing it . Photo taken 10/02/14
Today we're interviewing Oky, a talented builder, reviewer, funny maker, and fellow blogger.
Read more: eurobricksstarwarsforum.com/2016/08/15/ebswf-blog-intervi...
I know it's sad but this is the most exciting thing I have witnessed since lockdown started. A news reporter came to interview a staff member from the care home behind where I live. So I dusted the cobwebs off a camera and put a long lens on it to record the event.
Cosmopolitan 1982 nº02
コスモポリタン
日本版 - japan version
Akira Toriyama Interview
Release date: 20/02/1982
￥390
Original and exclusive HQ Scans
provided by:
Vintage French postcard. Series Collection Artistique du Vin Désiles. S.I.P. Photo by Manuel. Fugère, Opéra Comique. Caption: Désiles! Désiles! Ton vin donne au chanteur, Et du charme et de la vigeur!
Lucien Fugère (22 July 1848, Paris – 15 January 1935, Paris) was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory and Mozart roles. He enjoyed an exceptionally long career, singing into his 80s.
Fugère's father died when he was 6, and at the age of 12 he was apprenticed as a mason, working on repairing statues and gargoyles of Notre Dame with his brothers. He also joined, and got noticed, in the singing societies popular in Paris at that time. Fugère was working as a jewelry salesman when he decided to try his luck at a career in music. After taking private voice lessons (he was refused by the Paris Conservatory), he made his debut as a chansonnier at the Bataclan in 1870. He then made his debut in operetta at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, in 1874, in La branche cassée by Serpette. In addition Fugère sang in La Boite au lait, Madame l'archiduc, Le Moulin du Vent-Galant and La créole at the Bouffes.
The turning point of his career came in 1877, when he made his debut at the Opéra-Comique as Jean, in Les noces de Jeannette by Victor Massé. He was to perform there regularly until 1920, creating roles in more than 30 operas, notably the father in Louise by Gustave Charpentier, Fritelli in Le roi malgré lui by Emmanuel Chabrier, and for Jules Massenet, Pandolfe in Cendrillon, the Devil in Grisélidis, des Grieux in Le portrait de Manon, Sancho in Don Quichotte, Boniface in Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, and for André Messager, Maitre André in Fortunio, Buvat in Le chevalier d'Harmental, and le Duc de Longueville in La Basoche. In total he sang in over 100 roles including Mozart's Figaro, Leporello, Papageno, Falstaff, and appeared at the Gaîté-Lyrique from 1908 until 1919. Two Chabrier songs are dedicated to Fugère: Sommation irrespectueuse and Pastorales des cochons roses, giving the premiere of the latter in 1890. In 1898, having sung at the re-opening of the Salle Favart, Fugère was presented to President Faure from whom he received the Cross of the Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. Fugère sang le Duc de Longueville one last time at the Opéra-Comique in 1929, and his final performance on stage was as Rossini's Bartolo, at the Trianon-Lyrique theater, in 1933, at the age of 85.
His voice was described as "a basse chantante of easy baritone range, with ringing clarity in the lower register and skilful refinement in the upper".[6] He recorded for Zonophone in 1902, and then for Columbia in 1928–30 (re-issued by Symposium). An outstanding singing-actor and a fine musician, Lucien Fugère enjoyed one of the longest operatic careers of all time. When asked about his longevity, he said to an interviewer, "If a man doesn't sing well by the time he is 83, when will he, I'd like to know!" He has been compared to the Swiss tenor Hugues Cuénod, who made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera at the age of 84. He became a singing teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, was a member of Comité de l'Association des Artistes dramatiques, and a member of the 'Commission départementales des Sites et Monuments naturels de caractère artistique de la Charente-Inférieure'.
(Source: English Wikipedia)
via Painters' Table - Contemporary Art Magazine: Daily Painting Links on Artist Blogs, Painting Blogs and Art Websites ift.tt/1Ina8MN
Japan Camera Hunter - Jesse's Visual Interviews: www.japancamerahunter.com/2019/12/jesses-visual-interview...
via Painters' Table - Contemporary Art Magazine: Daily Painting Links on Artist Blogs, Painting Blogs and Art Websites ift.tt/1Q8skNU
A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (in Hebrew Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and CV
Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter?
Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers.
Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings?
Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites.
A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard.
Question: Raphael Perez What characterizes your naive painting?
Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics
(Definition as it appears in Wikipedia)
• Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans.
• The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality.
• Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details.
• Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details.
• Warm and bright colors.
• Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines.
• Most of the characters are flat, lack volume
• No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions
• No interest in anatomy.
• There is not much use of light and shadow, the colors create a three-dimensional effect.
I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings
Question: Raphael Perez Why do you mainly choose the city of Tel Aviv?
Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint,
I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one
Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel.
Question: raphael perez are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem
Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism of today
In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs
Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your city paintings
Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples:
In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality,
In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more
I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed
In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city
Question: Have you created series of other cities from around the world?
Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings
Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments
I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city
Notes: In an interview for the Library Service in 1984, Don Kerry talked about the family motor repair business which was started by his father in 1928. His father built the current garage in 1936 and in 1939 when the first petrol pumps arrived, there were six brands sold: Shell, Altantic, Plume, Texaco, COR and AMP. Don joined his father in the business in 1944. By 1951 it was just Atlantic petrol, which later became the Esso brand.
Format: Colour negative film
Licensing: Attribution, share alike, creative commons.
Repository: Blue Mountains City Library bmcc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/default/
Part of: Local Studies Collection
Provenance: BMCC
Date Range: 1983
Location: Great Western Highway
JOHN LENNON and YOKO ONO (talk to Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali)
Tariq Ali: Your latest record and your recent public statements, especially the interviews in Rolling Stone magazine, suggest that your views are becoming increasingly radical and political. When did this start to happen?
John Lennon: I've always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo. It's pretty basic when you're brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere. I mean, it's just a basic working class thing, though it begins to wear off when you get older, get a family and get swallowed up in the system. In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days; that would be around '65 or '66. And that religion was directly the result of all that superstar shit--religion was an outlet for my repression. I thought, 'Well, there's something else to life, isn't there? This isn't it, surely?' But I was always political in a way, you know. In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there's many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I've been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around. I was very conscious of class, they would say with a chip on my shoulder, because I knew what happened to me and I knew about the class repression coming down on us--it was a fucking fact but in the hurricane Beatle world it got left out, I got farther away from reality for a time.
TA: What did you think was the reason for the success of your sort of music?
JL: Well, at the time it was thought that the workers had broken through, but I realise in retrospect that it's the same phoney deal they gave the blacks, it was just like they allowed blacks to be runners or boxers or entertainers. That's the choice they allow you--now the outlet is being a pop star, which is really what I'm saying on the album in 'Working class hero'. As I told Rolling Stone, it's the same people who have the power, the class system didn't change one little bit. Of course, there are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.
Robin Blackburn: Of course, class is something the American rock groups haven't tackled yet.
JL: Because they're all middle class and bourgeois and they don't want to show it. They're scared of the workers, actually, because the workers seem mainly right-wing in America, clinging on to their goods. But if these middle class groups realise what's happening, and what the class system has done, it's up to them to repatriate the people and to get out of all that bourgeois shit.
TA: When did you start breaking out of the role imposed on you as a Beatle?
JL: Even during the Beatle heyday I tried to go against it, so did George. We went to America a few times and Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there came a time when George and I said 'Listen, when they ask next time, we're going to say we don't like that war and we think they should get right out.' That's what we did. At that time this was a pretty radical thing to do, especially for the 'Fab Four'. It was the first opportunity I personally took to wave the flag a bit. But you've got to remember that I'd always felt repressed. We were all so pressurised that there was hardly any chance of expressing ourselves, especially working at that rate, touring continually and always kept in a cocoon of myths and dreams. It's pretty hard when you are Caesar and everyone is saying how wonderful you are and they are giving you all the goodies and the girls, it's pretty hard to break out of that, to say 'Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.' So in its way the second political thing I did was to say 'The Beatles are bigger than Jesus.' That really broke the scene, I nearly got shot in America for that. It was a big trauma for all the kids that were following us. Up to then there was this unspoken policy of not answering delicate questions, though I always read the papers, you know, the political bits. The continual awareness of what was going on made me feel ashamed I wasn't saying anything. I burst out because I could no longer play that game any more, it was just too much for me. Of course, going to America increased the build up on me, especially as the war was going on there. In a way we'd turned out to be a Trojan horse. The 'Fab Four' moved right to the top and then sang about drugs and sex and then I got into more and more heavy stuff and that's when they started dropping us.
RB: Wasn't there a double charge to what you were doing right from the beginning?
Yoko Ono: You were always very direct.
JL: Yes, well, the first thing we did was to proclaim our Liverpoolness to the world, and say 'It's all right to come from Liverpool and talk like this'. Before, anybody from Liverpool who made it, like Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, had to lose their accent to get on the BBC. They were only comedians but that's what came out of Liverpool before us. We refused to play that game. After The Beatles came on the scene everyone started putting on a Liverpudlian accent.
TA: In a way you were even thinking about politics when you seemed to be knocking revolution?
JL: Ah, sure, 'Revolution' . There were two versions of that song but the underground left only picked up on the one that said 'count me out'. The original version which ends up on the LP said 'count me in' too; I put in both because I wasn't sure. There was a third version that was just abstract, musique concrete, kind of loops and that, people screaming. I thought I was painting in sound a picture of revolution--but I made a mistake, you know. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution. On the version released as a single I said 'when you talk about destruction you can count me out'. I didn't want to get killed. I didn't really know that much about the Maoists, but I just knew that they seemed to be so few and yet they painted themselves green and stood in front of the police waiting to get picked off. I just thought it was unsubtle, you know. I thought the original Communist revolutionaries coordinated themselves a bit better and didn't go around shouting about it. That was how I felt--I was really asking a question. As someone from the working class I was always interested in Russia and China and everything that related to the working class, even though I was playing the capitalist game. At one time I was so much involved in the religious bullshit that I used to go around calling myself a Christian Communist, but as Janov says, religion is legalised madness. It was therapy that stripped away all that and made me feel my own pain.
RB: This analyst you went to, what's his name. ..
JL: Janov ...
RB: His ideas seem to have something in common with Laing in that he doesn't want to reconcile people to their misery, to adjust them to the world but rather to make them face up to its causes?
JL: Well, his thing is to feel the pain that's accumulated inside you ever since your childhood. I had to do it to really kill off all the religious myths. In the therapy you really feel every painful moment of your life--it's excruciating, you are forced to realise that your pain, the kind that makes you wake up afraid with your heart pounding, is really yours and not the result of somebody up in the sky. It's the result of your parents and your environment. As I realised this it all started to fall into place. This therapy forced me to have done with all the God shit. All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them. When I was a child I experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into my mind. Janov doesn't just talk to you about this but makes you feel it--once you've allowed yourself to feel again, you do most of the work yourself. When you wake up and your heart is going like the clappers or your back feels strained, or you develop some other hang-up, you should let your mind go to the pain and the pain itself will regurgitate the memory which originally caused you to suppress it in your body. In this way the pain goes to the right channel instead of being repressed again, as it is if you take a pill or a bath, saying 'Well, I'll get over it'. Most people channel their pain into God or masturbation or some dream of making it. The therapy is like a very slow acid trip which happens naturally in your body. It is hard to talk about, you know, because--you feel 'I am pain' and it sounds sort of arbitrary, but pain to me now has a different meaning because of having physically felt all these extraordinary repressions. It was like taking gloves off, and feeling your own skin for the first time. It's a bit of a drag to say so, but I don't think you can understand this unless you've gone through it--though I try to put some of it over on the album. But for me at any rate it was all part of dissolving the God trip or father-figure trip. Facing up to reality instead of always looking for some kind of heaven.
RB: Do you see the family in general as the source of these repressions?
JL: Mine is an extreme case, you know. My father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother. But Yoko had her parents there and it was the same....
YO: Perhaps one feels more pain when parents are there. It's like when you're hungry, you know, it's worse to get a symbol of a cheeseburger than no cheeseburger at all. It doesn't do you any good, you know. I often wish my mother had died so that at least I could get some people's sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother.
JL: And Yoko's family were middle-class Japanese but it's all the same repression. Though I think middle-class people have the biggest trauma if they have nice imagey parents, all smiling and dolled up. They are the ones who have the biggest struggle to say, 'Goodbye mummy, goodbye daddy'.
TA: What relation to your music has all this got?
JL: Art is only a way of expressing pain. I mean the reason Yoko does such far out stuff is that it's a far out kind of pain she went through.
RB: A lot of Beatle songs used to be about childhood...
JL: Yeah, that would mostly be me...
RB: Though they were very good there was always a missing element...
JL: That would be reality, that would be the missing element. Because I was never really wanted. The only reason I am a star is because of my repression. Nothing else would have driven me through all that if I was 'normal'...
YO: ... and happy ...
JL: The only reason I went for that goal is that I wanted to say: 'Now, mummydaddy, will you love me?'
TA: But then you had success beyond most people's wildest dreams...
JL: Oh, Jesus Christ, it was a complete oppression. I mean we had to go through humiliation upon humiliation with the middle classes and showbiz and Lord Mayors and all that. They were so condescending and stupid. Everybody trying to use us. It was a special humiliation for me because I could never keep my mouth shut and I'd always have to be drunk or pilled to counteract this pressure. It was really hell ...
YO: It was depriving him of any real experience, you know...
JL: It was very miserable. I mean apart from the first flush of making it--the thrill of the first number one record, the first trip to America. At first we had some sort of objective like being as big as Elvis--moving forward was the great thing, but actually attaining it was the big let-down. I found I was having continually to please the sort of people I'd always hated when I was a child. This began to bring me back to reality. I began to realise that we are all oppressed which is why I would like to do something about it, though I'm not sure where my place is.
RB: Well, in any case, politics and culture are linked, aren't they? I mean, workers are repressed by culture not guns at the moment ...
JL: ... they're doped ...
RB: And the culture that's doping them is one the artist can make or break...
JL: That's what I'm trying to do on my albums and in these interviews. What I'm trying to do is to influence all the people I can influence. All those who are still under the dream and just put a big question mark in their mind. The acid dream is over, that is what I'm trying to tell them.
RB: Even in the past, you know, people would use Beatle songs and give them new words. 'Yellow submarine' , for instance, had a number of versions. One that strikers used to sing began 'We all live on bread and margarine' ; at LSE we had a version that began 'We all live in a Red LSE'.
JL: I like that. And I enjoyed it when football crowds in the early days would sing 'All together now'--that was another one. I was also pleased when the movement in America took up 'Give peace a chance' because I had written it with that in mind really. I hoped that instead of singing 'We shall overcome' from 1800 or something, they would have something contemporary. I felt an obligation even then to write a song that people would sing in the pub or on a demonstration. That is why I would like to compose songs for the revolution now ...
RB: We only have a few revolutionary songs and they were composed in the 19th century. Do you find anything in our musical traditions which could be used for revolutionary songs?
JL: When I started, rock and roll itself was the basic revolution to people of my age and situation. We needed something loud and clear to break through all the unfeeling and repression that had been coming down on us kids. We were a bit conscious to begin with of being imitation Americans. But we delved into the music and found that it was half white country and western and half black rhythm and blues. Most of the songs came from Europe and Africa and now they were coming back to us. Many of Dylan's best songs came from Scotland, Ireland or England. It was a sort of cultural exchange. Though I must say the more interesting songs to me were the black ones because they were more simple. They sort of saidshake your arse, or your prick, which was an innovation really. And then there were the field songs mainly expressing the pain they were in. They couldn't express themselves intellectually so they had to say in a very few words what was happening to them. And then there was the city blues and a lot of that was about sex and fighting. A lot of this was self-expression but only in the last few years have they expressed themselves completely with Black Power, like Edwin Starr making war records. Before that many black singers were still labouring under that problem of God; it was often 'God will save us'. But right through the blacks were singing directly and immediately about their pain and also about sex, which is why I like it.
RB: You say country and western music derived from European folk songs. Aren't these folk songs sometimes pretty dreadful stuff, all about losing and being defeated?
JL: As kids we were all opposed to folk songs because they were so middle-class. It was all college students with big scarfs and a pint of beer in their hands singing folk songs in what we call la-di-da voices-'I worked in a mine in New-cast-le' and all that shit. There were very few real folk singers you know, though I liked Dominic Behan a bit and there was some good stuff to be heard in Liverpool. Just occasionally you hear very old records on the radio or TV of real workers in Ireland or somewhere singing these songs and the power of them is fantastic. But mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group. Today's folk song is rock and roll. Although it happened to emanate from America, that's not really important in the end because we wrote our own music and that changed everything.
RB: Your album, Yoko, seems to fuse avant-garde modern music with rock. I'd like to put an idea to you I got from listening to it. You integrate everyday sounds, like that of a train, into a musical pattern. This seems to demand an aesthetic measure of everyday life, to insist that art should not be imprisoned in the museums and galleries, doesn't it?
YO: Exactly. I want to incite people to loosen their oppression by giving them something to work with, to build on. They shouldn't be frightened of creating themselves--that's why I make things very open, with things for people to do, like in my book [Grapefruit]. Because basically there are two types of people in the world: people who are confident because they know they have the ability to create, and then people who have been demoralised, who have no confidence in themselves because they have been told they have no creative ability, but must just take orders. The Establishment likes people who take no responsibility and cannot respect themselves.
RB: I suppose workers' control is about that...
JL: Haven't they tried out something like that in Yugoslavia; they are free of the Russians. I'd like to go there and see how it works.
TA: Well, they have; they did try to break with the Stalinist pattern. But instead of allowing uninhibited workers' control, they added a strong dose of political bureaucracy. It tended to smother the initiative of the workers and they also regulated the whole system by a market mechanism which bred new inequalities between one region and another.
JL: It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult--even the Chinese seem to need a father-figure. I expect this happens in Cuba too, with Che and Fidel. In Western-style Communism we would have to create an almost imaginary workers' image of themselves as the father-figure.
RB: That's a pretty cool idea--the Working Class becomes its own Hero. As long as it was not a new comforting illusion, as long as there was a real workers' power. If a capitalist or bureaucrat is running your life then you need to compensate with illusions.
YO: The people have got to trust in themselves.
TA: That's the vital point. The working class must be instilled with a feeling of confidence in itself. This can't be done just by propaganda--the workers must move, take over their own factories and tell the capitalists to bugger off. This is what began to happen in May 1968 in France...the workers began to feel their own strength.
JL: But the Communist Party wasn't up to that, was it?
RB: No, they weren't. With 10 million workers on strike they could have led one of those huge demonstrations that occurred in the centre of Paris into a massive occupation of all government buildings and installations, replacing de Gaulle with a new institution of popular power like the Commune or the original Soviets--that would have begun a real revolution but the French C.P. was scared of it. They preferred to deal at the top instead of encouraging the workers to take the initiative themselves...
JL: Great, but there's a problem about that here you know. All the revolutions have happened when a Fidel or Marx or Lenin or whatever, who were intellectuals, were able to get through to the workers. They got a good pocket of people together and the workers seemed to understand that they were in a repressed state. They haven't woken up yet here, they still believe that cars and tellies are the answer. You should get these left-wing students out to talk with the workers, you should get the schoolkids involved with The Red Mole.
TA: You're quite right, we have been trying to do that and we should do more. This new Industrial Relations Bill the Government is trying to introduce is making more and more workers realise what is happening...
JL: I don't think that Bill can work. I don't think they can enforce it. I don't think the workers will co-operate with it. I thought the Wilson Government was a big let-down but this Heath lot are worse. The underground is being harrassed, the black militants can't even live in their own homes now, and they're selling more arms to the South Africans. Like Richard Neville said, there may be only an inch of difference between Wilson and Heath but it's in that inch that we live....
TA: I don't know about that; Labour brought in racialist immigration policies, supported the Vietnam war and were hoping to bring in new legislation against the unions.
RB: It may be true that we live in the Inch of difference between Labour and Conservative but so long as we do we'll be impotent and unable to change anything. If Heath is forcing us out of that inch maybe he's doing us a good turn without meaning to...
JL: Yes, I've thought about that, too. This putting us in a corner so we have to find out what is coming down on other people. I keep on reading the Morning Star [the Communist newspaper] to see if there's any hope, but it seems to be in the 19th century; it seems to be written for dropped-out, middle-aged liberals. We should be trying to reach the young workers because that's when you're most idealistic and have least fear. Somehow the revolutionaries must approach the workers because the workers won't approach them. But it's difficult to know where to start; we've all got a finger in the dam. The problem for me is that as I have become more real, I've grown away from most working-class people--you know what they like is Engelbert Humperdinck. It's the students who are buying us now, and that's the problem. Now The Beatles are four separate people, we don't have the impact we had when we were together...
RB: Now you're trying to swim against the stream of bourgeois society, which is much more difficult.
JL: Yes, they own all the newspapers and they control all distribution and promotion. When we came along there was only Decca, Philips and EMI who could really produce a record for you. You had to go through the whole bureaucracy to get into the recording studio. You were in such a humble position, you didn't have more than 12 hours to make a whole album, which is what we did in the early days. Even now it's the same; if you're an unknown artist you're lucky to get an hour in a studio--it's a hierarchy and if you don't have hits, you don't get recorded again. And they control distribution. We tried to change that with Apple but in the end we were defeated. They still control everything. EMI killed our album Two Virgins because they didn't like it. With the last record they've censored the words of the songs printed on the record sleeve. Fucking ridiculous and hypocritical--they have to let me sing it but they don't dare let you read it. Insanity.
RB: Though you reach fewer people now, perhaps the effect can be more concentrated.
JL: Yes, I think that could be true. To begin with, working class people reacted against our openness about sex. They are frightened of nudity, they're repressed in that way as well as others. Perhaps they thought 'Paul is a good lad, he doesn't make trouble'. Also when Yoko and I got married, we got terrible racialist letters--you know, warning me that she would slit my throat. Those mainly came from Army people living in Aldershot. Officers. Now workers are more friendly to us, so perhaps it's changing. It seems to me that the students are now half-awake enough to try and wake up their brother workers. If you don't pass on your own awareness then it closes down again. That is why the basic need is for the students to get in with the workers and convince them that they are not talking gobbledegook. And of course it's difficult to know what the workers are really thinking because the capitalist press always only quotes mouthpieces like Vic Feather* anyway. [Ed. Note: Vic Feather 1908-76 was General Secretary of the TUC from 1969-73.] So the only thing is to talk to them directly, especially the young workers. We've got to start with them because they know they're up against it. That's why I talk about school on the album. I'd like to incite people to break the framework, to be disobedient in school, to stick their tongues out, to keep insulting authority.
YO: We are very lucky really, because we can create our own reality, John and me, but we know the important thing is to communicate with other people.
JL: The more reality we face, the more we realise that unreality is the main programme of the day. The more real we become, the more abuse we take, so it does radicalise us in a way, like being put in a corner. But it would be better if there were more of us.
YO: We mustn't be traditional in the way we communicate with people--especially with the Establishment. We should surprise people by saying new things in an entirely new way. Communication of that sort can have a fantastic power so long as you don't do only what they expect you to do.
RB: Communication is vital for building a movement, but in the end it's powerless unless you also develop popular force.
YO: I get very sad when I think about Vietnam where there seems to be no choice but violence. This violence goes on for centuries perpetuating itself. In the present age when communication is so rapid, we should create a different tradition, traditions are created everyday. Five years now is like 100 years before. We are living in a society that has no history. There's no precedent for this kind of society so we can break the old patterns.
TA: No ruling class in the whole of history has given up power voluntarily and I don't see that changing.
YO: But violence isn't just a conceptual thing, you know. I saw a programme about this kid who had come back from Vietnam--he'd lost his body from the waist down. He was just a lump of meat, and he said, 'Well, I guess it was a good experience.'
JL: He didn't want to face the truth, he didn't want to think it had all been a waste...
YO: But think of the violence, it could happen to your kids ...
RB: But Yoko, people who struggle against oppression find themselves attacked by those who have a vested interest in nothing changing, those who want to protect their power and wealth. Look at the people in Bogside and Falls Road in Northern Ireland; they were mercilessly attacked by the special police because they began demonstrating for their rights. On one night in August 1969, seven people were shot and thousands driven from their homes. Didn't they have a right to defend themselves?
YO: That's why one should try to tackle these problems before a situation like that happens.
JL: Yes, but what do you do when it does happen, what do you do?
RB: Popular violence against their oppressors is always justified. It cannot be avoided.
YO: But in a way the new music showed things could be transformed by new channels of communication.
JL: Yes, but as I said, nothing really changed.
YO: Well, something changed and it was for the better. All I'm saying is that perhaps we can make a revolution without violence.
JL: But you can't take power without a struggle...
TA: That's the crucial thing.
JL: Because, when it comes to the nitty-gritty, they won't let the people have any power; they'll give all the rights to perform and to dance for them, but no real power...
YO: The thing is, even after the revolution, if people don't have any trust in themselves, they'll get new problems.
JL: After the revolution you have the problem of keeping things going, of sorting out all the different views. It's quite natural that revolutionaries should have different solutions, that they should split into different groups and then reform, that's the dialectic, isn't it--but at the same time they need to be united against the enemy, to solidify a new order. I don't know what the answer is; obviously Mao is aware of this problem and keeps the ball moving.
RB: The danger is that once a revolutionary state has been created, a new conservative bureaucracy tends to form around it. This danger tends to increase if the revolution is isolated by imperialism and there is material scarcity.
JL: Once the new power has taken over they have to establish a new status quo just to keep the factories and trains running.
RB: Yes, but a repressive bureaucracy doesn't necessarily run the factories or trains any better than the workers could under a system of revolutionary democracy.
JL: Yes, but we all have bourgeois instincts within us, we all get tired and feel the need to relax a bit. How do you keep everything going and keep up revolutionary fervour after you've achieved what you set out to achieve? Of course Mao has kept them up to it in China, but what happens after Mao goes? Also he uses a personality cult. Perhaps that's necessary; like I said, everybody seems to need a father figure. But I've been reading Khrushchev Remembers. I know he's a bit of a lad himself--but he seemed to think that making a religion out of an individual was bad; that doesn't seem to be part of the basic Communist idea. Still people are people, that's the difficulty. If we took over Britain, then we'd have the job of cleaning up the bourgeoisie and keeping people in a revolutionary state of mind.
RB: ...In Britain unless we can create a new popular power-and here that would basically mean workers' power--really controlled by, and answerable to, the masses, then we couldn't make the revolution in the first place. Only a really deep-rooted workers' power could destroy the bourgeois state.
YO: That's why it will be different when the younger generation takes over.
JL: I think it wouldn't take much to get the youth here really going. You'd have to give them free rein to attack the local councils or to destroy the school authorities, like the students who break up the repression in the universities. It's already happening, though people have got to get together more. And the women are very important too, we can't have a revolution that doesn't involve and liberate women. It's so subtle the way you're taught male superiority. It took me quite a long time to realise that my maleness was cutting off certain areas for Yoko. She's a red hot liberationistand was quick to show me where I was going wrong, even though it seemed to me that I was just acting naturally. That's why I'm always interested to know how people who claim to be radical treat women.
RB: There's always been at least as much male chauvinism on the left as anywhere else--though the rise of women's liberation is helping to sort that out.
JL: It's ridiculous. How can you talk about power to the people unless you realise the people is both sexes.
YO: You can't love someone unless you are in an equal position with them. A lot of women have to cling to men out of fear or insecurity, and that's not love--basically that's why women hate men...
JL: ... and vice versa ...
YO: So if you have a slave around the house how can you expect to make a revolution outside it? The problem for women is that if we try to be free, then we naturally become lonely, because so many women are willing to become slaves, and men usually prefer that. So you always have to take the chance: 'Am I going to lose my man?' It's very sad.
JL: Of course, Yoko was well into liberation before I met her. She'd had to fight her way through a man's world--the art world is completely dominated by men--so she was full of revolutionary zeal when we met. There was never any question about it: we had to have a 50-50 relationship or there was no relationship, I was quick to learn. She did an article about women in Nova more than two years back in which she said, 'Woman is the nigger of the world' .
RB: Of course we all live in an imperialist country that is exploiting the Third World, and even our culture is involved in this. There was a time when Beatle music was plugged on Voice of America....
JL: The Russians put it out that we were capitalist robots, which we were I suppose...
RB: They were pretty stupid not to see it was something different.
YO: Let' s face it, Beatles was 20th-century folksong in the framework of capitalism; they couldn't do anything different if they wanted to communicate within that framework.
RB: I was working in Cuba when Sgt Pepper was released and that's when they first started playing rock music on the radio.
JL: Well hope they see that rock and roll is not the same as Coca-Cola. As we get beyond the dream this should be easier: that's why I'm putting out more heavy statements now and trying to shake off the teeny-bopper image. I want to get through to the right people, and I want to make what I have to say very simple and direct.
RB: Your latest album sounds very simple to begin with, but the lyrics, tempo and melody build up into a complexity one only gradually becomes aware of. Like the track 'My mummy's dead' echoes the nursery song 'Three blind mice' and it's about a childhood trauma.
JL: The tune does; it was that sort of feeling, almost like a Haiku poem. I recently got into Haiku in Japan and I just think it's fantastic. Obviously, when you get rid of a whole section of illusion in your mind you're left with great precision. Yoko was showing me some of these Haiku in the original. The difference between them and Longfellow is immense. Instead of a long flowery poem the Haiku would say 'Yellow flower in white bowl on wooden table' which gives you the whole picture, really....
TA: How do you think we can destroy the capitalist system here in Britain, John?
JL: I think only by making the workers aware of the really unhappy position they are in, breaking the dream they are surrounded by. They think they are in a wonderful, free-speaking country. They've got cars and tellies and they don't want to think there's anything more to life. They are prepared to let the bosses run them, to see their children fucked up in school. They're dreaming someone else's dream, it's not even their own. They should realise that the blacks and the Irish are being harassed and repressed and that they will be next. As soon as they start being aware of all that, we can really begin to do something. The workers can start to take over. Like Marx said: 'To each according to his need'. I think that would work well here. But we'd also have to infiltrate the army too, because they are well trained to kill us all. We've got to start all this from where we ourselves are oppressed. I think it's false, shallow, to be giving to others when your own need is great. The idea is not to comfort people, not to make them feel better but to make them feel worse, to constantly put before them the degradations and humiliations they go through to get what they call a living wage.
Tariq Ali is editor of London's New Left Review, a filmmaker and novelist, and has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, including 1968 and After: Inside the Revolution (1978) and the 1987 Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties. He was prominently involved in 60s antiwar and radical politics; Jagger, a personal friend, is said to have written "Street Fighting Man" in his honor.
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Location
Vienna (Austria): U-Bahn [Subway].
Subject
In a subway station of Vienna I found the man you see on the right, standing still in the middle of a lane, wearing headphones and holding an humongous microphone in his hands. I was ambushing him along the wall, when the second man came into the frame: it seemed like Big Mike was asking for an interview. Actually, I think that Big Mike was a technician measuring the level of noise in the subway.
Related posts: Images from Vienna
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Gianluca Vecchi
Web, Digital Marketing and Communication Consultant – Italy www.gnetwork.it ● www.gianlucavecchi.it
For more information ⇒ Check my profile
License my pictures ⇒ 500Prime
A while back, a Chinese lifestyle magazine called TECHMAG interviewed me about my 365 Days project. I got a pdf version a while ago, but I finally got the real glossy version in the mail yesterday! Whoa! A two page spread!!!!! I feel SO unworthy!
Now, if I could only read Chinese...
Today's Random Fact: I'm totally famous in China.
www.recyclart.org/2015/10/recycled-art-interview-2-sophie...
We continue our series of posts interviewing "recycled art" crafters & artists. This week, we interviewed Sophie Marsham, a well-known sculptor in the community of Recycled Art. If you think you deserve to be featured in the next interview, please, drop us an email.
Tell us a little more about you? Who you are? Where are you from?
I am Sophie Marsham, a sculptor, from London, working in reclaimed and found objects.
How did you become a "Recycled Art" artist?
I became a recycled art artist 25 years ago when I was at Chelsea Art School.
Since when are you working with recycled & upcycled materials and more general since when are you in the world of "Recycled Art"?
I partly used reclaimed materials in the beginning as it was a cheap resource as a student.
What are your can’t-live-without essentials?
My can't live with essentials are wire, glue, nuts and bolts and tools.
How would you describe your style? Are there any crafters/artists/designers that you particularly look up to?
I make thought provoking, often humorous pieces from found objects. I love Joseph Cornell, Cornelia Parker, Haroshi and Kendra Haste.
How is your workspace, how do you make it inspiring?
My workspace is in the garden and full of inspiring objects, clock faces, springs, beads, glass, printing blocks, old tools, chocolate moulds etc...
What sorts of things are inspiring you right now? Where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by objects that I find in vintage fairs/carboot sales, especially if it's multiples of the same object, such as pen nibs, clock hands, teddy bear eyes... I am mostly inspired by nature, repeated patterns found in nature, bird feathers, snowflakes, shells, stones...
When do you feel the most creative?
I feel pretty creative all the time, as I'm constantly finding new objects to inspire me.
We live in such a mass-produced, buy-it-now society. Why should people continue to make things by hand?
Making things by hand is the most rewarding and making one off art from something that has been previously used and discarded is the most exciting aspect of the work. I love it when the viewer works out what has been used for a certain sculpture, I love the intrigue. I believe in breathing new life into discarded objects.
What is your favorite medium to work in?
I mainly work in metal but also use wood, glass, resin...
What is your guilty pleasure?
My guilty pleasure is good coffee and great cake.
What is your favorite thing to do (other than crafting)?
My favourite thing apart from art is art house independent films. I would love one day to make an animation film with some of my objects.
You have been involved in a lot of artistic projects, are you a full-time artist or is it just a hobby?
I am a full time artist, it's not a hobby and have been working for 22 years. I make tiny hand held pieces and have made many large scale installations up to 6 meters. I love to vary the scale.
Any websites that our readers should not miss?
Not a website to recommend as such, apart from my own of course www.sophiemarsham.com, but a great book called RAW + MATERIAL = ART.
Anything else you would like to tell to the « recycling community »?
Keep up with recycling, it will become even more vital for our kids and their kids.
Thanks a lot Sophie for this interview! :)
To see all the posts by Sophie, it's here.
For a post on scottosmith.com/2007/11/07/photowalking-san-francisco-dow...
My set from the San Francisco Photowalk be seen here: Photowalk San Francisco