Peter Steward

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2008 Art Diary

In this section I discuss music, films, books and anything else from the art world enjoyed and experienced during 2008.

January 2008

My artistic 2008 journey started on New Year's Day with a visit to Cinema City in Norwich to see The Kite Runner which is based on the best selling book by Khaled Hosseini. I had mixed feelings about going to see this film, not being hugely interested in the politics of Afghanistan. If you feel the same way don't let it put you off seeing what is a very beautiful film that works on so many levels. It examines the role of family, friendship, honour and loss all against the background of Taliban led Afghanistan. Director Marc Forster has beautifully moulded together established actors and actresses with newcomers. Many of those appearing actually come from Afghanistan and many are making their acting debuts and this adds to the power of the film. One well worth seeing. It's sad but not in the accepted definition of that word.

Having seen the film I was keen to read the book and find out a bit more about the author. But first amongst our pile of Christmas books I found the follow up to The Kite Runner - another novel about Afghanistan entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns. So I started to read this instead and wasn't disappointed. I now look forward to the film. I have reviewed the book in my review section.

Music-wise I am determined to find some new music in 2008. That means new as well as established artists I have still to discover. I usually read the excellent magazine Uncut to get hold of names I need to look into.

First such came from an article on Dory Previn the former wife of Andre. Subscribing to Napster on the Internet makes it possible to find or re-visit music. They have a vast library and for around £15 a month I can legally download music to my computer and MP3 player or listen to it on-line. Initial views on Dory Previn - Zany but let's move onto somebody a bit more meaningful, a kind of female Van Dyke Parks. From there I actually found a couple of gems amongst the huge amount of dross. British Sea Power are a literate band from Brighton and their new album Do You Like Rock Music certainly has more highs than lows (again it is reviewed elsewhere on this site). I am always looking for an album of the year and out in front so far is Skybound by Tom Baxter. It made record of the week on Radio Two and Baxter also appeared on the Richard and Judy Show on Channel Four. I don't expect this to be my favourite album by the end of the year, but it is a good enough start. I also sampled the latest offering from Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8. Hated it at first but then began to like it. The lyrics are at times dreadful but there is a certain honesty about it and a couple of stand-out tracks including the title song which looks back on the Liverpool days of his youth and the Beatles. Ringo makes reference to his birthplace in the Toxteth area of the city. I looked this up on the internet to find there is a petition to save his home from demolition. Of course I signed it. Our modern world seems all too keen to destroy our heritage. As the site says "scarcely a day goes by without a coach with tourists stopping outside number nine." The whole experience made me want to visit Liverpool again - it's many years since I was there and it is the European City of Culture for 2008!

Over Christmas I taped the last edition of Extras and managed to fit that in on Thursday 3rd. I'm glad that Ricky Gervais et al have decided to call a halt to this series as they seem to be running out of ideas. The Christmas special was mildly amusing but the best part was when Gervais found himself appearing on Celebrity Big Brother and issuing forth on false fame. This was pointed commentary on the cult of celebrity, almost as if the series had ended before it goes the same way. Having come up with The Office and Extras it will be very interesting what Gervais and co-writer Steven Merchant come up with next.

Alongside the Hosseini book I also read Michael Palin's diaries from 1969 to 1979 covering the Monty Python years. Just before Christmas I revisited (via Napster) some of the Monty Python records. I have never been a great fan of comedy records. I am left unmoved by the likes of Tony Hancock and find the Goons only mildly amusing. Python is something different, however. It's a mad bag of crazy sketches that are still laugh out loud. I can still remember going to school the day after a Python TV show and repeating all the catch phrases. Python was the pre-cursor of virtually every comedy show from Harry Enfield to Paul Whitehouse, Ab Fab and Faulty Towers to Catherine Tate and Little Britain. They all owe the Pythons a huge debt of gratitude. New Years' day also brought The Life of Brian to our television screens.

The diaries explode the myth of Pythons as pranksters. It illustrates how the corporate world can almost destroy originality. I always pictured Messrs Cleese, Palin, Chapman, Jones, Idle and Gilliam as being as zany in real life as on our screens. Sadly the diaries debunk that theory. Cleese comes over as a rather temperamental character, Chapman as a tortured alcoholic and Idle as rather precious and easily upset. Palin has carved out a career out of niceness and I must admit is one of the few well known human beings I would really like to meet which is always a possibility as he has very strong connections with Southwold which is just about our favourite place in the country. It must have been virtually impossible to one minute be acting the fool in front of the camera and the next trying to negotiate deals and payments in the real world.

One evening when I was at a loose end I unwrapped a Christmas DVD bought in a garden centre of all places. It was a relatively short documentary on my all time music hero Harry Chapin. It may have been short but it certainly brought his music to life again. Harry was a great humanitarian and a stunning lyricist. If you haven't heard any of his music and you are reading this, grab some of his songs from anywhere you can and listen closely to the lyrics and the stories.

Saturday 5th January saw a visit to Carrow Road to watch Norwich draw 1-1 with Bury in the FA Cup but that scarcely constitutes art in any way, shape or form so I will move swiftly on to the film Lust, Caution. For a start the title is pretty naff and this Ang Lee directed film was quite a disappointment. The plot was wafer thin. It was interesting from an historical perspective but sadly that's about it. A long drawn out film with little of real interest.

On television I watched Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre. Failed to see the point of it for quite some time but then got entranced by the action and the sheer scale of the 9/11 disaster. It was good to see an American disaster movie that didn't descend into second rate "we saved the world" schmaltz. This was probably due to the fact that it was based on true events.

Was saddened to read of the death at the age of 28 of actor Heath Ledger. Like so many artists he seemed to be a tortured soul. It must come with the territory. I'm not familiar with a huge amount of his work although I have seen Brokeback Mountain a couple of times and found it a difficult film to watch. Ledger's performance in that was excellent and on my list of to see films is the Bob Dylan biopic which features Ledger.

Towards the end of the month I read Next of Kin by John Boyne, an Irish writer who was responsible for my favourite book of last year - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This was a clever political/historical murder thriller with plenty of twists and turns but at times slightly confusing and implausible.

February 2008

Literature has the power to amaze, it also has the power to bore. In the right hands a novel or piece of non fiction can astound. In the wrong hands it can be dull and meaningless. The joy is always coming across a new author that leaves you with the wow factor. It's even better when you realise that this author has produced a number of books and so there's plenty to discover.

Roger Jon Ellory is an unusual author. He comes from Birmingham (that's Birmingham in England) but writes American novels. At first his novels were turned down in this country because the pubishers didn't want American novels written by an Englishman. Then they were turned down by American publishers for exactly the same reason. How little did they know?

Despite being English, Ellory has the brilliant ability to conjure up images of small town America. A Quiet Belief in Angels is set in the late 1930s and later. I wouldn't want to spoil the plot but it is a novel that works on a number of levels. It is about the prejudices of small town America, it is about history, it is about the struggle for survival of the central character and it is a crime novel all rolled into one.

One reviewer on Amazon stated that after finishing A Thousand Splendid Suns, he was worried about finding another novel with anything like the same feel of power. Then he came across A Quiet Belief. I went through the same kind of thing. I started reading the Pulitzer Prize winner Now in November by Josephine Johnson and wish I hadn't bothered. It was a limp take on the same kind of area as covered so brilliantly in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

Together Khalid Hosseini and Roger Ellory have shown that literature can still amaze and that there are genuinely talented contemporary writers out there - it's just a matter of sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

I also read a biography of Rugby League commentator Eddie Waring by Tony Hannan. Now I know that there isn't much art in rugby league but this was also a social history of the West Riding of Yorkshire, although, in truth, it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a history of Yorkshire, a biography of Waring or a history of rugby league and consequently fell somewhere in the middle of all three.

Music-wise I spent the month listening to a variety of styles - on one day I remember mixing religious Easter music including Stainer's Crucifixion with some very strange drum and bass contemporary music. It didn't appear top be a great month for new releases - my favourite album of the month was probably Join With Us by The Feeling which would now rank third or fourth in my favourite albums of the year behind Do You Like Rock Music by British Sea Power, Skybound by Tom Baxter and possibly Liverpool 8 by Ringo Starr.

Didn't go to too many gigs during the month apart from a delightful concert at Norwich Arts Centre to see a Danish singer-songwriter by the name of Tina Dico. As usual it was a very knowledgeable audience and Tina has a sparkling voice and engaging personality and is somebody you might hear a lot more about in the future. The art centre has this incredible knack of picking up and coming artists. I cannot speak highly enough about this venue. But even they have surpassed themselves this June. I was idly looking through the lists of coming concerts when I saw the name Judy Collins.

My immediate reaction was that a tribute singer had been lined-up. But no it is the real thing. I grew up with the voice of Judy Collins. Most people think of her as an American folk singer. She is also one of the finest female songwriters that the USA has produced. To think that she is playing a venue as small as Norwich Arts Centre is little short of amazing. Not surprisingly I quickly bought a couple of tickets and am hugely looking forward to the gig. I would say that she is one of my three all-time favourite female singers - Joan Baez and Karen Carpenter being the other two. I can only hope that she sings the stunning "Singing Lessons" and "The Blizzard."

Last month I had to record the death of one of my all-time musical heroes - Dan Fogelberg who produced one of my favourite all-time albums "The Innocent Age." This month we lost American Singer-Songwriter John Stewart. Always a cowboy at heart, Stewart's music is Americana through and through and probably the closest I will ever get to enjoying country music. I would describe it as country/folk with a dollop of rock thrown in. If you get the chance just listen to the album California Bloodlines to see what I mean. I saw Stewart a few years ago in London and sadly by that time his voice (reminiscent of that of Johnny Cash) was a pale shadow of its former glories. He will be best remembered as the composer of Daydream Believer - a song made internationally famous by The Monkees.