poliphilo

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Contrary to what people believe mad people don't make great art.

"Great wit to madness, sure, is close allied." That's something Pope tossed off. Probably without thinking it through.

The creation of great art demands mental discipline and concentration. You may be having astonishing visions but giving them artistic form is hard work.

Was Dali mad? Of course not. Eccentric, wilful, perverted, fearless, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

Madness shuts down genius. When an artist goes mad it kills their ability to make art.

I don't think Van Gogh was mad either.

Nijinsky wrote his diary as he was going mad. It isn't great art but it is the work of a great artist- and that makes it interesting. The mind wanders. The profound and the trivial sit side by side. The writing is choppy. Short sharp sentences. Non-sequiturs. He'll say a thing. And then in the next sentence say something that contradicts it. He says he's a beast. He says he's God. He doesn't censor himself

Nietsche thought he was God too. The book he wrote on the cusp is also "interesting" By a weird coincidence both Nietzsche and Nijinsky- at an interval of something like 40 years- employed the same guy to come in and make up the fires in their Swiss appartments.

I don't think mad people lose their hold on "reality". I think their mental defences get trodden down and the immensity of Reality sweeps in and overwhelms them.

No, don't ask me what's going on in the UK- I only live here.

I'm told we have rioting. And the ostensible reason for the rioting is dissatisfaction with the government's immigration policy- and the government has responded with threats of greater repression and harsher punishment- because that's how it goes.

Three little girls were murdered by a knifeman. Word got round that the killer was a Muslim extremist. That was the spark, the excuse. When people are angry any spark will do- and it's usually some minority that gets targeted. Actually the knifeman was nativeborn and a Christian.

I don't know how many people are taking to the streets, or how seriously violent they are. Fires have been set.

Some people want to talk the violence up, others want to play it down. I suppose I'm in the latter camp but if you accuse me of complacency you could be right.

An American news show I sometimes watch says "Civil War." I'm not feeling it.

There's a story (That's all I have, other people's stories) about the guy who turned up for an advertised demo and found he was the only one who could be bothered. There was him, there were two police officers, there was a van.

Far-right generalissimo Tommy Robinson- who tweeted the untruths about the knifeman- seems to have been caught on the hop. He was photographed roasting himself on a recliner in Greece. He helped wind the clock but wasn't around to hear it strike....

A Miscellany

. Inanna Descends

2. Siblings

3. Bonjour, Madame

4 Concierge

5 Deserter

A helicopter flew over at around a quarter to six this morning, making a frightful racket. The birds didn't like it either....

I cut the grass yesterday. I'd been holding off to give the wildflowers a chance to bloom and seed- and now they're mostly finished. The ragwort is still going strong, though, and I've very carefully mown around it. Ragwort used to give us a headache at the farm because we had horses in the fields and it's supposedly poisonous. The horses' owners- house dwelling Romany- who presumably know as much about horses as anyone on the planet- were never bothered. I think they thought their horses were smart enough not to eat it. Anyway, I don't have to worry about it here. There are no horses within a mile- and ragwort is beautiful and smells glorious....

For some reason, and don't ask me how it came about, I'm taking an interest in Vaslav Nijinsky. There is no footage- not even the tiniest scrap- of his dancing, because Diaghilev thought the primitive cinematography of the day wasn't up to doing it justice. And maybe that's OK. It means there's nothing in existence to make us question how supernaturally good he was. Sarah Bernhardt came away from a performance going, "I'm scared, I'm scared. I've just seen the greatest actor in the world".

People affirmed that when he leaped through the window in The Spectre of the Rose the laws of physics were temporarily suspended. Asked how he did it, Nijinsky said, "I jump and when I get to the top of the arc I just pause a little before coming down."

He "went mad". I don't know what that means- because it seems to me that as he wrestled with the restraints that were holding his mind together he was never more brilliant, more frightening, more enlightened. I've been reading snippets from the Diary he kept at that time- and they're astonishing. "My madness, he wrote, "Is my love towards mankind."

His last public performance- towards the end of the Great War- was in front of an audience of silk hats and their ladies at a posh hotel in Switzerland. He sat in silence, facing the audience for half an hour (can it really have been that long?) then rose and said "I'm going to dance you the War- which you did nothing to stop..."

One of our friends has been diagnosed with dementia. Well, I knew he had it but maybe he didn't- and it has hit him hard. Plans are being made to move him out of his single-person flat and into a care home.

To warehouse him.

For everyone's convenience.

Dementia is something I am determined not to get. Determined, determined, determined.

I can see our gull through the window. It's perched on a fence post, standing on one leg like a yogi- with its head turned backwards and its bill resting along its back. I'm thinking that its weight, fore and aft, must be in perfect equilibrium. Its eyes are open, so even though it's resting it's still watching the world....

Oh- and now it's gone. It must have spotted an opening....

The high ups at the BBC will be wondering what to do with the huge tranche of their current affairs archive that is imprinted with Huw Edwards' serious voice and serious face.

Edwards has been a news reporter and presenter since 1986 and topped off his career as the man providing the commentary on the establishment's most elaborate floor shows- including elections, Olympics, royal weddings and royal funerals. It will be an embarrassment to all concerned that every time the announcement of the Queen's death gets replayed people will be going, "Oh look, a paedophile!"

Much of what he did can simply be hidden away- as has happened with the Jimmy Savile, Stewart Hall and Rolf Harris materials- but Edwards wasn't a light entertainer but a chiseller of historical landmarks. Only in Orwell-land- and we're not there yet- could it be pretended that he never existed.

They keep promising us thunderstorms- but there seems to be something about the atmospherics of this area where land meets sea that drives the big clouds away to north and south and keeps us tingling in anticipation of a ruckus that never happens. Last night as the sky got more and more leaden I saw a single scribble of lightning and- a long time after- heard a faint drum roll- and that was it.

The day before yesterday- or maybe the day before that- was the hottest of the year. This morning we have an overcast and the air is cooler.

I would welcome a proper storm and some proper rain....

I watched Lawrence of Arabia. This took up much of the middle of the day. The evening before I'd started reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence's "self-regardant" account of the desert revolt he got caught up in. "Self-regardant" is his own word so let's not accuse him of naïveté. I've always found him interesting, but why I should want to deepen that interest at this particular moment in time is beyond me. I had a favourite Balzac lined up but, having just finished La Chartreuse de Parme, I felt I'd spent long enough in the atmosphere of early 19th century France and it would be nice to go some place else....

In a dream I was watching authentic film footage from the 16th century. "These people are just like us," I said to the film maker. He laughed and said they weren't. "But that man with the handle-bar moustache who sneezes," I said, "I've known people just like him.

Later I was making coffee for David Lammy, the Labour politician (and current Foreign Secretary) who'd been up all night dealing with some natural disaster- flooding, I think....

I generally wake at six and doss around for hours but this morning I was out on my scooter at seven thirty to catch the post with a letter for our solicitor. I wasn't the only person stirring but it reminded of the times I used to have to get out the house really early to go to work- and what a pleasure it was to be breathing the pure cold air and watching the dawn and feeling that I had the world to myself....

You pull a weed almost anywhere on this property and you cause ants- tiny ants- to go running about in all directions.

It looks like panic. It looks like they haven't a clue what to do.

But ants always look like they're running around like little clockwork toys. I watch them sometimes. A single ant will go so far in a particular direction, then turn, retrace its steps, covering a distance at a speed that would exhaust a human being, and never seem to do anything that looks like work or the solution to a problem.

But ants are so well organised, create such complex societies and such enormous cities, that they can't really be milling about aimlessly. It must just be that we don't understand.....

1. Something Important Is About To Happen

2. Look, Listen, Be Aware....

3. Hey, It's The 1920s Now

4. Aquarius

5. La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

Unless I use a picture to illustrate a post my AI images are subject to time-lag. Partly that's beacuse I don't want to swamp my journals and partly because I like the pictures to lie around for a bit before I decide whether I like them. These were all made a few weeks back.

1 Angel

2. Bronze Buddha

3. Souvenirs

4. She Enters Our Dimension

5. "But Noah Found Grace In The Eyes Of The Lord"

I've been calling it rhinitis- brought on by hay fever- but our mate Jim- who we were socialising with last week- has the same symptoms, so perhaps it was something catchable after all. At least it's not covid. I did the test and it came out negative.

I'm better today, only my ribs hurt from all the coughing I did.

During my convalescence I watched movies (see previous posts) and sat on the bed and read. I've nearly finished The Charterhouse of Parma. The political stuff is gripping but Fabrizio becomes a bore once he falls in love with the tiresomely virtuous Clelia and I no longer fully believe in him.

No need to dream.

The Hammer version- entitled Captain Clegg- or Night Creatures in the USA- turns out to be all I could wish for.

It reuses the Arliss script, but darkens the tone, heightens the drama and suspense, and improves the plot. The action is opened out, we get the footage that the Arliss version dodges- of the night-riders in their phosphorescent costumes- and very splendid they are too- and gives us a denouement that is livelier and more satisfying. I won't say Peter Cushing is better than Arliss but he's younger and more vigorous and all the supporting parts, with the exception of margaret Lockwood's, are filled by better actors- with Oliver Reed giving a certain oomph to the thankless role of the young lover. It looks good, there are nice directorial touches and, all in all, it's a damn fine film.

How wonderful if the mild-mannered, grandfatherly vicar of the parish were actually a former pirate turned head of a smuggling gang who dresses as a scarecrow to terrorize the local populace. It never happened of course. At least, we don't think it did, but if the man got away with it we'd never know. What we do know is that smuggling gangs used church property to stash their contraband- and the local clergy winked at it- or were terrorised into winking at it. Anyway it's a grand notion- and well done, Russell Thorndike, for coming up with it.

Legend says he invented Dr Syn to entertain his sister- the actor Sybil Thorndike- when they were holed up in a south-coast hotel and there was a thunderstorm and they couldn't sleep.

The story became a book. I read about half of it once. It wasn't very good. But then neither are the original Robin Hood ballads. The idea is greater than its encasement

Then the book became a series. The later volumes- all prequels- are full of incident. I supect they dilute the original idea. A character like Syn doesn't need to be expounded. The less we know about him the more impressive he is.

There have been three film versions. I saw the first of them- a Disney movie for heaven's sake- when I was a kid. The scarecrow costumes terrified me, but they only show up in the first few minutes and the rest of the movie is dull. Dr Syn is played by Patrick McGoohan and his deputy, Mipps, by George Cole....

Last night I happened upon the 1937 version. It was George Arliss's last film and Margaret Lockwood's first. Rather too much of it takes place indoors- which is a pity because the landscape of Romney Marsh is unique and unearthly- but it moves with a zip and Arliss is splendid- in spite of being around 70 at the time- which is a bit old to be playing an action hero.

The third movie is a Hammer production starring Peter Cushing. I ought to hunt it down..

I imagine a future version that will combine zip with atmosphere and give full rein to the spookiness and yo-heave-hoing of the original story. It will be shot on Romney Marsh and exploit it to the full.

One can dream....

My friend who is a bred in the bone Democrat was insisting up until Hour Zero that President Biden was as fit as a flea. I didn't argue because it would have been unprofitable, merely hinted that there was nothing unusual about a very old man suffering a degree of mental and physical impairment.

But it does sadden me when an intelligent person allows political loyalties to blind them to the bloody obvious. An unquestioning faith is something that rots a democracy.

There used to be a thing called the floating voter. This was a person who followed politics without ever aligning themselves with a particular party- and when an election came round weighed up the alternatives very carefully. Politicians had to woo the floating voter. And the existence of this sizeable demographic kept the politician honest and credible. Too many broken promises and dirty tricks would cause the floater to disengage from the whole process. And that is what has happened, I think. The electorate is now made up of a minority of party loyalists and a majority who don't give a damn either way.

Our last election here in Britain wasn't won by Labour because there was any enthusiasm for Starmer and his gang, but because people were sick of the same smug old faces turning up on their TV screens day after day This isn't a healthy sate of affairs.

My friend has now transferred their faith to Kamala Harris. Biden- gone but not forgotten- is the past, while Harris is the very embodiment of rosy-fingered dawn.....

People who have looked into it say that there's no Mount Abora anywhere on the planet. Coleridge made it up.

I took down my slim volume of Coleridge to check whether it was "Abora" or "Aborah"- and it fell open at the flyleaf and I saw it had once been the property of Eastbourne College. Well I never! How did it end up on my shelves? Well, my Uncle Dick had written his name in it (in 1935)- and , incidentally, decorated it with dinky little schoolboy drawings. I must have known he went to school in Eastbourne- but I'd not bothered to remember because it's only now that Eastbourne means anything to me. I pass by Eastbourne College all the time. It's a rather grand conglomeration of mid to late 19th century architecture on a large campus to the west of the town. I wonder if one can do a tour....

I never crack open a Coleridge without hoping I'll chance upon some really decent poem that has somehow escaped the notice of the cultural gatekeepers but I never do. The gatekeepers are right about him: he was a competent versifier who wrote three blazing masterpieces- or possibly four if you include Frost at Midnight as I'm inclined to do- and spent the rest of his life wondering what had hit him. Uncle Dick's school book reprints a short piece by Emerson- in which he records a visit to Coleridge as an old man living as a charity case in a friend's house in Highgate. Coleridge by this stage of his life was a voluble, tiresome, self-absorbed person who betrayed his addictive nature by continually stuffing his snitch with snuff- and liberally scattering it down the front of his black suit. Knowing that Emerson was a Unitarian he subjected him to a hour long diatribe about the stupidity of Unitarians and the wisdom of a couple of Anglican Bishops who are now completely forgotten. Emerson admits not paying much attention to this talking-to. Coleridge was now one of the sights of London- like The Tower or St Paul's- and he was happy to have been able to tick him off his bucket list.

Rhinitis sounds nicer than it is. I say the word and what I see is rhinoceroses and rhinestones- possibly even a rhinoceros covered in rhinestones- like a gift for an emperor.

The reality is less amusing

I went to the Meeting House and worked hard at being good company from 10-30 until 3-00. Then I came home and slept for half an hour. Since then I've been prompting AI to make me images of an Abyssinian maid singing of Mount Aborah- and burning though credits in the attempt to get it right. Burning through credits takes my mind off my symptoms- the stuffed up sinuses and the constant sneezing.

The Abyssinian maid is sitting in a verdant valley being cheerful.

Wish I was.

I gave up on having her play a dulcimer because AI couldn't decide how many fingers there are on the human hand

I watched a clip of a new TV show in which Anthony Hopkins- who is very old- was being a Roman Emperor presiding over a chariot race. He had two sons, a decent soldierly one and a sneery decadent one. Which of the two will succeed him?

Talking about Ancient Rome is a good way of talking about politics without getting caught up in contemporary issues and personalities. It takes the heat and itch out of a sore subject. It is a kind of analgesic.....

I am so tempted to talk about contemporary politics but I shan't. Except to say, "Oh, my giddy aunt...."

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poliphilo

March 2026

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Bloody Helicopter, Ragwort, Nijinsky

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Lawrence

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