Jupiter Artland

Another day trip! It was such good weather last Friday, Alice was even prepared to give up going to her cheap movie matinee, in order to visit this sculpture park she'd heard about.

I enjoyed riding on the top of the bus - a West Lothian number 27 this time, right up to the splendid gates of Jupiter Artland.

Alice took simply oodles of photos, which it's taken her ages to fiddle about with. She's such a perfectionist with her cropping and adjusting.  I wanted her to just get on with the ones I was in, but she insisted on staying up late two nights in a row to get them all "just right." The other ones you can view online elsewhere.

First we trudged through a rather dark coppice, with lumps of stone stuck in the trees. Alice said it was designed by one of her favourite Land Artists, but I thought it was all a bit silly. The foxgloves (real) were pretty, though. Nothing to do with foxes: probably the little folk.

The Duck Pond was more to my liking, gave some lovely reflections in the sun, and a view of the intriguing Boathouse. It turned out to have shelves full of bottles of water from a hundred different rivers in Great Britain! I'm not sure why that counts as Art, but Alice says it's another of these Conceptual doo-dahs. I admit they were quite jolly.

Looking across the pond from there, we caught a glimpse of the amazing Life Mounds. They were simply huge, really looked like land sculpted by a Giant! Anyone could walk and climb over them, though running or rolling was strongly discouraged. I had a good view, even from this smaller one.

Pricked out below the head of the "sperm" is THE FUTURE PREGNANT WITHIN THE PAST. Well, that's a truism, but  these artists don't like to leave you in any doubt about how to interpret things...

I loved the pattern of rings on this big stump, even though Alice said it wasn't an official piece of art. Why not? And why not if I choose to say it is? Deep questions.

I thought it was considerate of them to put up this wonderful climbing frame for the kiddies. Wrong again! It's another sculpture. By Antony Gormley - the one who did his own body Six Times all down the Water of Leith in Edinburgh.

Actually, if you look at the 3rd photo on Jupiter Artland's website here, you'll see it is a body, after all. It's called Firmament, supposedly because it was inspired by a map of the Heavens. If you can imagine the 1019 steel balls without the 1770 steel bars, it would resemble a Star Map. I'm trying, I'm trying hard. Hhmmmm...

Suddenly we came across this tragic figure, one of what proved to be five different Weeping Girls.

One looked so distraught I tried to offer her some comfort, but nought availed. Looking closer, I discovered she had NO FACE under her hair! None of them did.

Positively creepy. But oddly captivating.

My nerves were gently soothed by meditating beneath the quiet gaze of Sappho, the poet and Tenth Muse, sculpted by Ian Hamilton Finlay.


The installation we both admired most of all was this astonishing cobweb, 400cm in diameter (about 13 feet.) It was knitted with circular needles and four strands of multi-coloured fishing line. Wow! Certainly a true Work of Art. Called Over Here, it drew you to look though it, as well as at it.

Don't forget you can view all these photos at a larger size if click on them, and even better still, if you right click and open in a separate tab. And follow the green links to find out more.

What a super trip. I recommend you take a visit as well, if you can.

Monk and Nina on the Fringe

You may be wondering why I've taken so long to report back on seeing Cousin Monk at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Well, it's been rather hard to gather together my responses, and Alice has also been reluctant to put fingers to keys. Let's explain.

Nina Conti

It all seemed to begin so well - we arrived in more than good time, and were first in the queue, so guaranteed a good seat. We waited. And waited. Then, in the middle of the waiting, Alice spotted Nina herself approaching. She whipped me out of her bag, and spoke the one word, "Nina". The lady turned towards us, so Alice held me up and said, My Monkey would like to say hello to you. To start with this was untrue, the person I wanted to say hello to was Monk. Secondly, as a friend gently pointed out, Nina might well have put down this grey-haired old lady clutching a small monkey as a totally unhinged individual (only half true) with whom any interaction was to be carefully avoided. [I'm eccentric, yes, but so is she! - Alice.]

[Reconstruction]

When we got in, several of the seats were already occupied, but we still got a place at one end of the fairly short front row. I was perched between Alice's feet in her attractive bag (she got it in Japan) where I could see and easily be seen. Monk was on first! He did his usual witty banter with the audience. One individual said she was an anthropologist. Monk replied, You know you're descended from me then, don't you! Or do you believe the other story?  Several audience members were interviewed, all in the front - but we weren't even acknowledged. Later, perhaps, I tried to console myself. But that later didn't come, and Monk never even appeared again! Even though I'm not capable of great emotional expression, I assure you I was very upset.

I'll let Alice finish this account. I've no more to say. So much for cousins.

Being continued . . . [12 August 2012] 

Nina Conti's Her Master's Voice & Dolly Mixtures - by Alice

I first encountered Nina Conti many years ago on a late-night TV stand-up show. This was when she worked solely with Monk. I thought their double-act was brilliant, unique, intelligent and totally hilarious. I went to see them perform live in a stuffy little venue on the Edinburgh Fringe, and they lived up to all expectations. As remarked on here before [Distant Cousins 6 July 2012] having my own penchant for philosophy, psychology and the absurd, I particularly appreciate how the two of them make use of the ventriloquist conventions yet simultaneously undermine and deconstruct them.

Anyone who saw the television broadcast of Her Master's Voice [BBC4 10 June 2012] will admire Nina Conti's emotional honesty about her personal life, and the story of her development as a talented artist. Her mentor, Ken Campbell, quoted Schiller on the Watcher at the gate of the mind, who blocks both insanity and creativity, as they are almost the same thing. Ken taught her that the ventriloquated doll is a device which allows us access to our insanity. Nina was his prodigy in ventriloquism and has been said to have reinvented the artform. She admitted that puppets may even surprise us by bringing out sides of our personality we didn't know we had.

I admit I sometimes feel like that with Monkey. . .

The film also revealed Nina's close and complex relationship with Monk. He can be a kindly companion, yet he can get away with murder too. As audience, we accept the illusion that Nina isn't really responsible for what he says. Don't we all have a rude, naughty little animal inside us? It's a profound shock, however, to have this made real when she lets him hypnotise her, disappear from sight, and then take her over completely.

Here I come. Here I come. Here I am! 

Oh, at last I'm in the stupid cow. And you're all a bit freaked out now, aren't you? 

Quite a sweet voice on a little monkey, but with breasts it's bloody sinister!

Recently Nina has added other characters to her entourage. Dolly Mixtures included her eight year old "daughter" - creatively inventive, juvenile and knowing; a Lothario of a handyman; a reformed Pit Bull Terrier; [more on those two below] a very elderly neighbour - touchingly sleepy, dementing and determined to stage-manage his own demise; and last, but certainly not least, her Scottish Granny - who sweetly conducted a brief audience review.

As Monkey said above, there was audience interaction. I began to feel suspicious about this with the anthropologist: I'd heard exactly the same joke from Monk on one of the many videos of Nina. [Search YouTube for starters.] How often do you get someone with the right occupation to prompt that one? And how come it was only those in the front row (who arrived before we did) who were asked to take part? 

Checking up later I found this review from 2010 which declares that my favourite comedienne uses stooges. A shame - she and Monk are smart enough to work extempore without them. The nature of the whole show changes too, when other people are used as dummies. Two were given half-masks, with mouths manipulated by Nina. One even stepped into a life-sized costume with a puppet-head. He co-operated by dancing with Nina, and then by "falling" down upon her and "doing press-ups" on request. The audience laughed, but I felt it verged on the abusive. What's more, she's much better than this, and doesn't need such tricks.

My favourite newcomer was Killer, the Pit Bull Terrier with a complex past history. He said he was now reformed and wore Claire's Accessories to prove the point, but in a rapid Jekyll and Hyde transformation reverted to an aggressive beast. Nina excells with this sort of mouthpiece. All the more shame that Monk, the true Jewel in her Crown, did not return to round off the show as he began it.

[That last link is totally irrelevant, but Monkey liked the colours so much, I've kept it to try and cheer him up.]

Dolly Mixtures was an apt title. As with the sweets, I preferred some to others.

Various visits

Well, only two, actually, but I just couldn't resisit the alliteration. Onk, a venerable individual, veteran of many mishaps (including a night lost out in the snow!) came with his assistant, Alice's grand-daughter. Yes, after getting that Vera muddle off her chest, she's now willing to admit to being a Granny. There's true maturity for you, I say. (Alice has bent right over the keyboard trying to hide her blushes.) The little girl told me she wants to be known here as Angelina.

We went to the park several times, as Angelina's a real ace on the monkey bars. I bet she ends up a gymnast, like those amazing young women in the Olympics.

She offered us a chance to taste her ice lolly: an incredible push-up object with miniature jelly-bears [no, not beans, bears, as in Teddy] at the bottom. She also gave us a turn on the swing, together with a new arrival, Tangerine, a kind gift from her uncle.

All in all, it was a lovely visit. We got on so very well, I hope she comes again soon.

Yesterday, we made another visit to our friend at Harvieston. I only mention it, because we have at last obtained a copy of the photo which shows him dressed up as Alfred Russell Wallace. I would apologise for the quality, but Alice spent ages trying to improve on a scan of a rather tiny original. If you remember, I think he must believe himself a reincarnation of that intrepid explorer and naturalist. I'll forbear commenting too harshly on such harmless fantasies, as Alice herself has similar delusions (oops) about the Liddell girl.

Bath and Bird

Cousin Monk

Washing

No, it's not about a bird-bath - the two words are only connected visually!

Alice recently decided to give me a wash and brush-up, in view of our impending attendance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to see my distant cousin Monk.  I'm getting more and more excited as the time gets closer, which makes it rather hard to concentrate. Anyway, she said it was a kind of bed-bath, except that I wasn't in bed, OR  a bath, but the bathroom sink.

Harvieston Feeders

Drying

Since it was a sunny day, I sat in the window to get dry, although we did have to finish me off with the hair-dryer - most titillating. [Get on with the story! - Alice]. What's that behind me, you may well ask? Click on the photo to see it more clearly.

Well, hoping to emulate in miniature our Harvieston friend's splendid bird attractions, we got a little feeder which attaches to the window. Did we get any birds? Well, the feed diminished quite spectacularly. Did we see any nice little finches or bluetits, or even sparrows? No, we most emphatically did not.

Caught in the Act

The culprit was finally spotted and snapped, perched on the windowsill. [The white collar round the back means it's a Woodpigeon.] Alice then moved the feeder higher up the window. The feed disappeared again but the window-box gained a distinctly trampled look. She moved the window-box to a different window. However, the cheeky pigeon must have found a way to perch on top of the whole edifice and lean downwards, as the protective green plastic strip was found on the windowsill, next to a large bird-splat. Maybe s/he fell off and got a fright, as nothing's changed recently.

So we're still waiting for some other birds to find us...