Saturday, August 15, 2009

INSPIRATION

Atvovo Metro station St Petersburgh 2002 ( beats Tara st. any day of the week) Locomotive workers theatre nr Mongolia (Closed ,along with the factory, in 1990's)

Sculptors studio St Petersburgh(Neat old seven series gathering dust)

Installation. Jessica Murray projects, Brooklyn.





The 3 books including the french cafe showing a spartan room near Loches in Touraine.In a back room here they play 'La boule de Fort' and behind a painted window is a painting of a nude lady. According to ritual the loser must open the window and 'kiss Fanny's arse' Now that's a top night out!


A while ago the Weaver of Grass http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/asked what inspires us? A good question that due to illness and not taking my anti-depressants I answered very negatively.I said nothing inspired me when it is closer to the truth to say that everything inspires me,or can. Music is a great inspiration,the human voice is the greatest instrument and if the words and music are right a song can be more affecting and primal and potent than any poem or written word or painting could ever be.Everyone has a soundtrack to their lives and a particular song can transport you back to any day or time or feeling, a n experience deeper and stronger than memory. Drink is the scourge of the planet along with other drugs,I wish I'd never taken a drop ,but I did and I feel it helps me write,whether this is real or not I don't know but most I have written was under the influence.In all probability it is just a psychological trigger I have given myself ,like one of Pavlovs dogs, but there you have it.Avoid it like the plague,I'm suresome people convince themselves that they can't write without it but we are codding our selves and killing ourselves at the same time.





I have 3 favourite books of photographs that I love and when I look through them I usually feel a spark of some kind.Not sure what it is ,but there's always definitely a beauty in them and a colour, a vibrancy and raw creativity (and pathos in the Rusian one) that is contagious and perhaps inspiring. I wouldn't look at them every day ,or even every week ,but just now and then when I get 'the feeling'





The books are Russia -photographs by Andrew Moore. Brooklyn : New Style (718) selected byLiz Farrelly and Martin Perrin and The French Cafe photographs by Eric Morin.

22 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Sometimes TFE You are my inspiration - you are making the long journey back from that piggy flu and already the old enthusiasm is kicking in. Lovely photos of what I still find it hard not to call Leningrad (went there often in the old days - it was cheap). I am so glad you do find inspiration around - I also agree about the human voice - If I could choose a talent to have it would be a good voice - as it is I have to make do with listening to others. Keep up the old enthusiasm.

Laurie Cannon said...

Hey -thanks for your comment
on Rule Of Thirds,
"Summer Pick, Urban Nightscapes".

I've just read your Inspirations post
- very moving, inSPIRational.

Don't know if any third of the
Thirds will post in future,
so I'll have to check in with
Totalfeckineejit
from time to time
to stay current

Still love that header photo
and your writing

Best,
Laurie

Tess Kincaid said...

I would love to browse through your Russia book, Mr. E. You're such a creative soul, I knew you had to be inspired on many levels.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Weaver ,I am so jealous of all your world travels but none more so than those around Russia,I would love to take my camera there.Don't you just love Russian shop signs and writing in general and all that incongruous fading grandeur? Wish I could sing well too :)


Hello Laurie, sorry to hear your blog may be ending,how's the photography? Hope you keep it up!Some lovely shots you have. Keep in touch now! :)

Oh, Willow, you should see it,it's amazing and my most favourite book by far,it never ceases to 'Wow' me. Come round and borrow it if you like :)

Heather said...

Those photographs are amazing, especially the first one. I haven't travelled much and think that Russia must be a very complex country with many contradictions. We hardly need to travel these days with all the media coverage, but there is nothing like seeing a place first hand. Enjoy your inspirations - beautiful singing can make me weep.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Yes Heather, they are amazing and there's loads more at least as good in the book.Russia is surely complex but beautiful in parts.Really bad singing makes me weep ;)

Unknown said...

What a time of it you've been having TFE. I missed most of it because I've been in Kerry, but I'm here now to wish you a big warm bear hug!

You should have seen us Prufrocks and Divas at Flatlake yesterday, you would have loved it - poetry gals on the loose in Monaghan!

Totalfeckineejit said...

Ooh, thanks B, not too tight now,me ribs are sore :) I would have loved to see yous at Flatlake,a brilliant festival and I bet ye were great.Maybe next year?

Unknown said...

Wonderful photos & some real thoughts on inspiration--hope you're continuing to feel better!

ArtSparker said...

I wonder if I still have the book of photographs form back in the eighties that a photographer took of a moldering beach house in southern California which became filled with graffiti over time- like a miniature apocalypse. Know what you mean about the music - it's a subliminal thing.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Thanks , John, and yes I think I'm on the mend-touch wood!

That sounds a great book, ArtSparker,an interesting project and ideal location for graffiti. I am a total hypocrite about graffiti I often admire it elsewhere or in books and hate it in my neighbourhood ,though in my defence the local graffiti is shite, like total moronic shite really poorly executed! Even that is a ridiculous statement what am I, a graffiti snob? Since when did graffiti become art and art alone?

Kat Mortensen said...

My drug of choice for writing is usually caffeine. Alcohol makes me too goofy. A few bloggers I know can attest to that.

I think moderation is the key. A drop of this or that to stir the muse and spur the creativity is a good thing.

I think some of the most beautiful things must be in Russia. It does look like a place I would love to see. Have you seen the film, "Russian Ark"? You should.

Kat

(Still keeping you in my prayers, just to be on the safe side.)

Totalfeckineejit said...

Never seen Russian Ark, Kat. Must look out for it.Moderation is right and thanks for keeping up those prayers ,Lord knows I need them, perhaps even a small miracle.Talking of which here's a (terrible, corny ,old) joke for you.The teacher was giving the religious lesson and one of the boys was taking the mickey out of the teachers country accent as he pronounced miracle as merricle.The boy kept mimicking the teachers pronounciation and asking him what a merricle was.Having enough of the boys cheek he took him to the front of the class turned him around and kicked him hard up the arse.Did you feel that Tommy? the teacher asked the surprised pupil.'Yes, I did sir' said the boy indignantly.
Well it would have been a 'merricle' if you hadn't said the teacher. :)

Dr. Jeanne Iris said...

Beautiful photos, TFE. Your camera with your perception on Russian soul? Inspirational, for sure!

I've had a few Russian students in my classes and am always thrilled to read their writing. (I save correcting theirs for the last as an educational dessert of sorts.) They have a poetic nature to just about every form of writing that I've assigned. Amazing.

Ah, the reason sound may be so inspirational to you is that the hearing mechanism is quite intricate in that it involves the physiological as well as the psychological. Here's a book that may interest some of you:

Mithen, Steven. The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language,
Mind, and Body. Boston: Harvard UP, 2006.

Dr. Jeanne Iris said...

LOVE the new photo of the horses on the beach!!! Another source of inspiration from our fearless leader of EEjit!

Totalfeckineejit said...

Thank you Professor Lakatos :)I would love to go to either Russia or Carlow.
That's interesting about your Russian students, I wonder why that might be? Also interesting why music might be hitting us on more levels and thus deeper.
The singing Neanderthals? Are they from Limerick?
Glad you like the capall on the beach, i likes them too!

Batteson.Ind said...

That's some hefty inspiration!... This inspiration question has got me thinking... as yet all I can come up with is chocolate! (there's not much depth in our house!).. Love that dilapidated theatre! I would love to have a rummage round that!

Totalfeckineejit said...

I love ruined buildings and always pull in and trek across fields when I see one from the car.Found an old brass bedtime candlesick in the last one -deadly.As for chocolate inspiration,I wonder where your songs really spring from and where do you dig to perform them so well?

Sara said...

WOW - that flu really affected you didn't it?!

Totalfeckineejit said...

Yip, Sara, made me even more crazy! :)

BT said...

I am working backwards here, so forgive me if nothing makes sense. Oh, hiya Weaver. What are you doing here? Love those Russian books 'Oh, those Russians' (spot the song). That old theatre looks wonderful. Being a thespian myself. Or a past it one. I'd love to visit Moscow and see the much talked about railway stations. Willow here too. How come we've not bumped into each other before?

Totalfeckineejit said...

Thespian Eh? very interesting.You must tell us more one day!Willow and Weaver sound good together don't they? Don't know why we haven't bumped before, maybe we were on the dodgems.