Only in Japan and Getting Kantian

A different league to the 'copy' at V&A

Had a particularly interesting letter and enclosure from Japanese friend yesterday, she'd had a short holiday in Southern Japan and sent me  information on the Otsuka Museum ( Naruto City in the Tokushima Prefecture), it is amazing.


I went to find out more and got a good clip on Youtube – it certainly saves a lot of flying and travel and great to see  –that  there's a work of Roy Lichtenstein included.

 I enjoyed seeing the copy of Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ at the V and A in London but this something altogether beyond that.

Not the one recreated in Ceramic.

Books -Maximum Volume

Smooth

Reading is getting difficult for me (see below) Youtube often does a better job - having said that am enjoying so far Maximum Volume  biography of George Martin which arrived yesterday -George Martin it seems was far more than the 5th Beatle.

An example, perhaps a better one than the 'boys' of class mobility - humble beginnings some luck and great musical talent meant he was accepted by all - it seems (from the book so far) that  he had integrity and also great ability to mix a dry martini.

Kant

Apparently we'll be looking at what Kant thought on Ethics tomorrow at CityLit , oddly I see that he's one of the most mentioned philosophers (by me!)

 But I'm struggling with him (still)  having read the Onora O'Neill piece on him for 'homework' - he is famously difficult to read but I'm sure that I can use that as an excuse here.

Perhaps I'll revisit after tomorrow!

Christmas casting

Abbey Road- here Sir George Martin really was the 5th Beatle 

Hearing that Ringo Starr is to be knighted (another Sir Richard Starkey) I've been following up on some more Beatles stuff (on YouTube for example) and enjoyed very much the insights that Richard Buskin talking to George Martin revealed .

Sir George never seemed to boast but it's fairly clear that as well as being influential with The Boys George did do a lot of the work that made the Beatles such an amazing group in terms of leading them forward musically.

[It's really nice having Chromecast on a big screen in the attic]

Christmas

The perfect gift

odd that Christmas is becoming (I think) less materialistic - once you've got everything (or nothing) it's about something else - Seems the latest Apple iPhone is top of what people wanted got in 2017 that (or an equivalent) pretty much is limitless (as though I suppose a pencil, eraser and stack of paper is) - I found this and got quite excited - reminded me that children sometimes have more fun with the packing than the gift

Digital Art and Red 221

Digital Art (1)

Just heard a rather nice BBC radio 4 documentary presented by (Baroness) Martha Lane-Fox called Arts Technologica - you can find the relevant programme links here.

Digital Art (2)

I'm thinking about what I'd like to show at this September's BEAT and as well as planning in my head it's nice to see the sequence of pictures.

Tamron the makers of lenses  have a nice little (free) tool that I've been looking at for planning exhibition layouts - it's not perfect but it does help visualise a sequence of pictures.

A virtual gallery showing my photo's

Pop Art

there've been a few deaths from the popular music world so far in 2016 - the figure that has left(for me) the biggest impression in popular music is Sir George Martin - I've read some of the obituaries to him and realise that it's pretty difficult to overestimate his significance in 'The Beatles Story' but alongside his creativity is the fact that he behaved so well.

Martin remained loyal and avoided backbiting as well as being a nice person who excelled it seems at making a mean Martini - I don't think we'll see a popular music producer like him again.

Red 221

Numbers, numbers- Lucky Red 447 - from my Landscape visit on Wednesday

A lucky red