Creative Tuesdays - Holiday Songs

Hello fine CT folks!

So... holiday songs it is, eh?
I must admit I am not a huge advocate of holiday songs, I have tended in life to favour Hitchens' opinion regarding the "tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations" that permeate the atmosphere this time of year though, like with most things, I have become more jolly and tolerant with age, even about that.



So saying, there are not a lot of holiday songs I can either conjure up in their entirety nor express anything about, though while I was looking at this riddle the absurd song 'Grandma got run over by a reindeer' came to mind. If I'm ever going to advocate for a holiday song, it would have to be one to so gleefully NOT take itself - or the season - seriously.



Meanwhile, I learned a few things about reindeers:

The reindeer is actually another name for the caribou, as it is known in the US. It is a species of deer native to Arctic and Subarctic regions. This includes both resident and migratory populations.


Reindeer have specialized noses featuring nasal turbinate bones that dramatically increase the surface area within the nostrils. Incoming cold air is warmed by the animal's body heat before entering the lungs, and water is condensed from the expired air and captured before the deer's breath is exhaled, used to moisten dry incoming air and possibly absorbed into the blood through the mucous membranes.

Reindeer hooves adapt to the season: in the summer, when the tundra is soft and wet, the footpads become sponge-like and provide extra traction. In the winter, the pads shrink and tighten, exposing the rim of the hoof, which cuts into the ice and crusted snow to keep it from slipping. This also enables them to dig down (an activity known as "cratering")^[19][20] through the snow to their favorite food, a lichen known as reindeer moss. The knees of many species of reindeer are adapted to produce a clicking sound as they walk.^{[21] This is why they are such successful winter animals!}
 

Balla, Giacomo Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash 1912 Oil on canvas 35 3/8 x 43 1/4 (89.9 x 109.9)

Balla, Giacomo
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash
1912
Oil on canvas
35 3/8 x 43 1/4 (89.9 x 109.9)

As far as the piece itself, before I finally read the words of the song, I had decided on a narrative where Grandma was walking across the frozen tundra to hand Santa some cookies and milk in a glass. The reindeer, seeing Grandma approach, reacts in a fit of pique, attacks grandma, and causes the carnage of cookies & milk.




I grew inspired by contemplating the dizzying portrayals of motion of the Futurists in general, and Balla's 'Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash' (1912) in particular.

Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 1912. Oil on canvas. 57 7/8" x 35 1/8"

Thanks to new technological advances in photography and the cultural/moral landscape of the 'modern era' (abstract art, etc), a certain group of artists set about creating an accepted visual language of motion in art. Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" is a good first example of that style - a painting which bended the minds of many incredulous and impressionable witnesses at the 1913 New York Armory show.


According to Tom Lubbock, upon discussing the above painting,  Balla's painting is particularly striking because:

Their legs have multiple positions, indicating brisk walking. They should be tripping along the pavement. Their bodies, on the other hand, have only one position in the picture, so their bodies are not advancing accordingly. If they're moving at all, it's much slower than the speed at which their feet would seem to be carrying them.

It's an awkward sense of movement that results. The lady's bunch of hard heels, scrumming under her skirts, promises a general trip-up. (An apparently unnecessary group of four kick out in front). The dog, meanwhile, gives the impression of frantic scampering. Its legs thrash beneath a body that makes no progress at all.

In my silly sketch I managed to also show the pathos of the attack, the fall, and the descent of the milk jug and glass, to its final conclusion. Yet the bodies are mostly stationary, albeit holding dynamic, awkward poses that portray a narrative of subjugation and domination - beast against (wo)man.



Hope all have had great holidays!

Creative Tuesdays - Gift

Franz Liszt certainly had the musical gift!

All right - to be perfectly honest, this is one that started out being completely different from what actually came out. As in, I don't even know how that happens.

With the theme of 'gift' I had intended to draw Pandora opening the infamous box - but then realized that wasn't particularly uplifting - same with the Trojan horse, though by then I had already started drawing Pandora who ended up looking weirdly masculine and whose arms were in that weird position.

Then I had pretty much no choice but to realize it reminded me of Franz Liszt, famous-famous (even to this day) 19th century virtuoso pianist whose music has been much enjoyed (and parodied) over the ages - i used to play piano so the association's not entirely insane.

I was getting ready to scrap the whole thing & start over when it struck me - "say, isn't musical ability a gift? Isn't the power that some have with their musical expression a gift?" I say..... yes!

Liszt was interesting. In his day he was basically as sought after & fanaticized over as the Beatles - in fact, the mass hysteria known as Beatlemania was named by a Scottish music promoter reminiscing (not that he was there!) the intense hysteria and fan frenzy known as Lisztomania.

So that's the drawing today - Liszt and all the raving fans :D

And now I leave all with Bugs Bunny performing the great Hungarian Rhapsody #2

Kirkwood Ballers, Eyedrum

Last night, on a whim, decided to abandon the hypnotizing computer screen for more interesting climes. Randomly saw on ArtNews a thread regarding the Kirkwood Ballers' Club, an event (like many many many) I'd always SAID I would attend but never manage to.

Not this time, by gad!

Drove down to Eyedrum. Got there at 11pm and saw all of 7 people. "Is this over?" I ask one of the fellow I run into "It's just begun..." ok, I can dig it. Small audience. Cozy. Nice.

Promptly I run into our old buddy Tom, who's ready to do some of his numbers. Since I'd sang along with him at one of his Christmas parties, he invited me up on stage with them, where I let loose a number of shrieks and verses, the whole time trying - and failing - to read the lyrics sheet in front of me. No matter, this is improv!!!

The other numbers were just ear-shattering, trip-inducing melanges of sound, sensation, vibration. I was able to completely disconnect from what I am and what I am doing and where I'm going and where I've been just by riding that 30-minute synth & kitchen pot & african drum airplane - my consciousness exploded into endless scintillae of sound, such as aerosolized U-238 ordnance sparks liberated from their shells. In other words, it was hell of cool...

I don't know if the meagre attendance speaks to the decadence of this activity, which promises to happen once a month at Eyedrum, but I dearly hope not... Go! Go forth, people. It's well worth it.

Next time I go I may take my violin.