Franz Marc, William Blake and unbreakable connections.

MG tells a wonderful story of the picture below and the poem which follows it. At an impressionable age, an unsophisticated 17, a couple of friends took him to the Lehnbach Gallerie in Munich. Wandering around, the three came upon the painting below, which is large, very large! MG sat down on the bench in front of it. After some minutes, impatient for some other pleasures, they said they would meet him about 2 hours later at the gallery entrance. Two and a half hours later, they wandered back from the entrance to try to discover what had become of their 'charge'. They found him still on the bench, mumbling to himself, "Did He who made the lamb make thee?"

Der Tiger, Franz Marc

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tiger, William Blake

Not sure what it is about the poetry and stuff at the moment. Perhaps the prospect of at least a week without smilies from a certain quarter, :( perhaps the Penguin equivalent of 'flu', you know, nostrils all bunged up, sweating like the proverbial, jackhammers on the inside of the head, nothing will stay down, even the bile and acid. Ah well, no doubt, like all things, this too will pass.

Now over the years, I've built up a little trove of these 'connections' of his and it sometimes puzzles me that things which might end up being experienced a number of times end up being tied to a single image whether a physical image like the tiger above, or a mental image, a picture in your head. He always see Marc's 'Tiger' in his head when he reads the poem and always starts reciting the poem when he sees the painting or a reproduction. This seems strange to this penguin. That exacly the same, or nearly the same neurons fire every time. I suppose after a couple of times, it starts to get self-reinforcing, like a little feedback loop in the memory.

Bouquets of flowers are always associated with standing on tip toe and vice versa. Why? Well as a pasty faced dwarf, MG invariably has trouble reaching up to peck the cheek when presenting a bouquet and on that particular occasion was especially humbled when some time later in the evening the person asked for another (peck not bouquet) which meant tippy-toes-time again; humbling for a testosterone fueled male. :) You'd have thought she would have had the courtesy to bend a little and save his pride :)

Gene Kelly is a wry smile from the doorway and the words: "Alright, you're forgiven". For what? A thoughtless, tactless remark and the ensuing 20 minutes as he attempted to apologise in a torrential downpour by re-enacting 'Singing in the rain', lamp-post swinging and foot in the gutter splashing included. Any resemblance to a drowned rat standing at the gate was entirely uncoincidental. The wry smile had the umbrella. :) Whenever it pours.............

Star Wars is always sunglasses. Some time after the release of 'Return of the Jedi', a cinema organised a 'breakfast showing' of all of the first three films. These start around midnight and the films are shown back to back and then they serve breakfast. Makes for a pleasant night out, literally. Now one of the party had recently bought bought a very expensive pair of Ray-Bans. As they're settling down to breakfast, someone remarks: "Why have you still got your sunglasses on?" "Hm? Oh I didn't notice, I still had them on." Yeah right! Every time MG puts his Guccis on, it still brings a smile. How on earth can you sit through over six hours of film and not know you've got shades on? :)

And finally, though this one is perhaps a little cruel and really only works one way but........ MG often gets a cab home from his mother's after visiting; the journey by public transport is a bit awkward. Now as they approach his road, he'll say: "Next right." ie turn into the next road on the right. His only problem is that the next thing, he wants to do, is shout: "It's a bloody roundabout!" (Roundabouts, in road terms, are traffic smoothers at junctions, you wait for a space to enter the flow in a clockwise direction and leave the flow at the appropriate turn off, they're indicated by a raised, circular mound. often many metres wide, at the centre of the junction) Now of course these don't show up on maps, only the junction itself. So MG's reading the map and says: "Next right". Now he can see it's a roundabout, the driver proceeds to go counter-clockwise around the roundabout, ie turning right! Just as well no-one was coming round the other side :) To make it all the more bizarre, the car behind followed!

Well the fish stayed down today so....................................