Bernard Buffet's "Clown" hangs on my sitting-room wall immediately opposite my chair. Thus, we spend a great deal of time staring at each other. And yes, you're right, my social life is not overwhelming! I bought it when I was a teen-ager in the late '50s for my Mum but like virtually all gifts teenagers give their parents it was really for me, as in me, me, me, because I just loved that painting. I still do.
I'm not suggesting that it's a great masterpiece. After all, the counter-point between a clown's smiley make-up and the unhappiness that might lie beneath it is as old as, well, Lear's Fool. But when you look at this man's face beneath the make-up it isn't actually unhappiness that you see, merely seriousness. And what's wrong with seriousness, I demand to know, speaking, or writing, as a man who has problems smiling myself and who detests people who smile at me. The 'Memsahib' has threatened to throw me out of our sitting-room because of my constant grumpy eruptions during the adverts on TV when all these bloody people come on and smile and smile and smile and then smile some more before giving you one last smile. I hate them all and I hate their products even if I can't quite remember what they are!
So you can see why me and my serious friend on the wall spend a lot of time looking at each other. I find him restful as I am sure he does me although, to be honest, it might just be that after all these years he finds me a bit, well, boring - yes, hard to believe, I know! Anyway, I think when I die he might as well come in the box with me because nobody else is going to look at him the way I have over all these decades.
Sounds as if you need cheering up, David.
You've been reading too many depressing books about war.
Watch "Arsenic and Old Lace" or a Mel Brooks movie or summat.
Lighten up, man.
Posted by: Andra | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 19:38
Aye David, Blazing Saddles, Dock that Nigger a Day,s Pay for laying down on the job.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 20:27
Well I have studied that man in the painting for a while and either my eye sight is a bit off, or he looks like the latter years of the late actor Ian Carmichael with stage make up half off but hair combed.
Posted by: Whitewall | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 21:09
No, no, Andra, really, I'm perfectly content being, well, serious, and sometimes, as you might have noticed on this blog, I am even capable of extreme silliness. But just don't keep smiling at me like those bloody sill 'wimmin' on the TV ads!
Jimmy, I fear you have a dose of the JKs! You haven't been up in the hills with Barney Magroo, I trust! Or perhaps in your case, Barney MacGroo!
Blimey, Whitewall, "Ian Carmichael"?! I had no idea you were that ancient!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 21:21
David build me a shrubbery!
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 21:36
You have still lost me, Jimmy!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 21:58
So here's that Kevin back again going on about bloody opera, but it just so happens that I was at the Metropolitan Opera, New York the other day watching Cav & Pag*, (well, down my local Vue cinema watching a live simulcast), and Pag, (Pagliacci) is all about this particular clown. (Well, perhaps not this one, but one just like him).
Pagliaccio is the clown in the Commedia del'Arte and the Opera is a play within a play about the happy life of a troop of entertainers on the road.
Here's Pavaroti singing Pagliaccio's main aria as he contemplates life and all that.
To act! …
While gripped by frenzy,
I no longer know
what I'm saying or doing!
And yet … I must … force yourself!
Bah, are you a man?
You're a clown!
Put on your costume
and powder your face.
The audience pays and wants to laugh.
And if Arlecchino
steals Colombina from you,
laugh, Pagliaccio …
and everyone will applaud!.
Turn into jest your anguish and your sorrow,
into a grimace your sobs and your grief.
Laugh, clown, at your broken love,
laugh at the pain which poisons your heart!
Heartwarming stuff,eh!
*Cav & Pag is short for Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, two fairly short operas that are usually put on together.
Posted by: Kevin B | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 22:57
David. Monty Python humour, sorry.
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 23:51
Thanks, Kevin, and I envy you you're 'night at the opera'. Er, don't forget to take your red nose off before you go to work!
Well, Jimmy, apart from being obscure you're also 'a very naughty boy'!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 01 May 2015 at 08:10
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCUQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvPFCn3itBFE&ei=ijZDVaCQDoT9oQTU2ICICA&usg=AFQjCNGe660nIMTa3KAwRW22RR7LR2qV7Q&sig2=1Efe6I1r0f2UDiSU72RJfg
This might help.
Posted by: Andra | Friday, 01 May 2015 at 09:18