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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: Dadaism

The Absolute Camel

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Candia in Arts, Celebrities, Family, Film, Humour, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Romance, Social Comment, Suttonford, television, Theatre, Travel, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

'Ern, Ali Baba basket, Berenice of Cilicia, Bosphorus, cakes and ale, Dadaism, Dickinson, dodecagon, Existentialism, fat, Garden of Remembrance, hairy legs, Herod, Iznik, Kristin Scott-Thomas, l'enfer c'est les autres, Metropolitan Archbishop, mince pies, Morecambe and Wise, mulled wine, Osman, ouzo, Play by Beckett, Pointless, Racine, Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett, short, Snodland, Snodland and Ash, Suetonius, Surrealism, The Absolute Camel, tribute act, urns, Who Do You Think You Are?, William the Conqueror

Samuel Beckett, Pic, 1.jpg

Great-Aunt Augusta was studying the newly photocopied programme

published by The Snodland Players, an amateur dramatic ensemble

who took their peripatetic programmes around nursing homes and

inflicted their rudely mechanical performances on captive audiences.

At least it is somewhat more challenging than one of those Primary

School variations on the nativity, combined with excruciatingly jolly

Yuletide ditties, opined the grumpy nonagenarian.

In actual fact, she had just asked to be wheeled out to the

recreation room as she could have sworn that she had smelled

mulled wine.

‘Play’ by Samuel Beckett, she read.  She liked Beckett.  What was

that play she had once seen with her sister?  Waiting for Ouzo?

Henry, I saw the film years ago.  It had that Kristin Scott-Thomas

woman in it.  You know, the one that Jeremy Fisher salivates over.

Jeremy Fisher? 

The one on that car programme.  Top Notch, or something.

Oh, Top Gear.  Clarkson.  Terrible man.

Kristin Scott Thomas Cannes.jpg

And Henry turned off his hearing aid and settled down to wait for

the hot toddy, given that his interest in hot totty had diminished

over the years, along with his driving skills.

I suppose they don’t need much scenery, Augusta commented to

another female resident.  And it’s only a one-act play, so there won’t

be an interval.

Pity, replied Madge. That’s the bit I  usually enjoy. Do you think there

will still be mince pies?

Oh, I doubt it.  We’re no longer virtuous, so they’ll probably cut back

on cakes and ale.

Matron was trying to be helpful with the logistics.  She scurried

around and came back with a trolley which bore three urns.

The Director picked one up.  Gosh, that’s really heavy.  I can see why

you needed the trolley.  Thanks, but I’m afraid they are too small and

they seem to be full of something rather weighty.

Yes, said Matron.  They are surprisingly heavy, considering that Ethel

was only about six stone and Oscar was about eight and a half…  Maybe

that’s why the rellies didn’t bother to pick them up to take them to The

Garden of Remembrance.  They probably thought that we would scatter

them, but some of the Eastern European staff are a bit superstitious about

that sort of thing, so we just put them on the shelves in Reception.  They

look pretty much like vases and the cleaning staff don’t knock them over

so easily.

Emmm, the Director was thinking rapidly on his feet, a thespian skill

which he tried to transmit to his rather slower colleagues.  Have you

got any of those Ali Baba laundry baskets?  They might do.

I’ll just have the girls wipe them down.  You never know what’s been

in them, Matron said helpfully.

Ta-da! she flourished some a few moments later.

Item image

The Director cut his introductory speech.  Some of the audience were

already asleep and it didn’t look as if anyone had a mobile phone on

them.

Augusta was waiting for the half-line about Snodland and Ash.  Apparently,

Beckett had once been in Kent, marrying one of the corners of his love

triangle.  Hence the references.  Ash/ urn…hmmm..

Something in the town had struck him, but when he had been asked

to explain its existential relevance, he had clearly taken the hump and

merely replied enigmatically: The Absolute Camel.

So, the choice of production was clearly topical.

One of the characters suddenly addressed the favoured coterie with

the philosophical question: Why am I dead?

Join the club, muttered Gerald, who was tired of waiting for the mulled

wine. He was also agitated at the thought of missing Pointless, which,

in his opinion was a cheerier form of Surrealism.

Madge interrupted with the following: I thought you said it had an ‘Ern in

it. I thought it was a tribute act to Morecambe and Wise.  But I don’t see

anyone with short, fat, hairy legs.

Augusta patted her knee.  No, darling.  I said ‘urns’.  Honestly, the

uncultivated company that she was obliged to keep nowadays!  L’enfer

was definitely les autres.  Didn’t they know that what they were watching

was Beckett’s response to a five-act play by Racine?  Furthermore, Racine

had swiped the concept from Suetonius’ scribblings about a love triangle

involving Berenice of Cilicia.

And the reason that she was aware of that was that her younger sister

was called Berenice and their mother had had love dodefayeds– nay,

dodecagons with various Oriental types, before she had settled down with

her erstwhile nomadic, but newly-domesticated rug-seller from The

Bosphorus.

Yes, both Berenice and her mother had been the types of blondes that

Raymond Chandler had said would have caused an Archbishop-

Metropolitan, or otherwise- to have kicked a hole in a stained glass

window.

Maybe it was the Herodian tendencies that had caused the members

of her family to be so ruthless in love.

So, life was somewhat surreal.  She granted that.  She’d never really

thought about her father.  She and her sister had the maternal surname:

Snodbury.  She supposed that her pater’s name must have been

something like Sirdar, or Osman.  But that rather sun-tanned antiques

quiz guy’s surname was Dickinson and, according to the telly programme

Who Do You Think You Are? he was of Iznik extraction and came from a

family of carpetbaggers- or was it ‘sellers‘?

At any rate, she was beginning to yawn.  That quiz programme would be

on tonight- the one they all liked with that rather aristocratic chap who

was related to William the Conqueror. (Weren’t we all?)

But she did find the other chap rather amusing.  What was his name?

Ah, yes: Osman.

Pointless.jpg

Wonder if he is any relation? 

If so, that would surely be Dadaism, not Surrealism, or Existentialism.

Dadaism would probably be a very low score under the Philosophy category.

Fill me up, dear!  At last- the mulled wine had arrived.  You can have two

glasses of that.  It’s not as strong as Dewlap Gin for the Discerning

Grandmother.  And, on cold nights like this, it’s the absolute camel!

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Chelsea Flower Show (Not)

25 Saturday May 2013

Posted by Candia in Celebrities, Horticulture, Humour, News, Suttonford, television, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alan Titchmarsh, Bank Holiday, Ben Weatherstaff, Chelsea Flower Show, Cromwell, Dadaism, Diarmuid Gavin, dogulator, Existential, FT, geometrie vegetale, Hans Arp, How To Spend It, leaf spreader, leprechaun, mauvaise foi, NGS Garden scheme, Nihilism, pension forecast, pikestaff, Poundcafe, Roundhead, Secret Garden

Diarmuid Gavin.jpg

Depressing news.  Depressing weather for the Bank Holiday.  Diarmuid Gavin

even pronounced the hundredth Chelsea Flower Show unimaginative and

somewhat disappointing.

Chlamydia looked out at the rain-soaked patio of Costamuchamoulah

must-seen cafe.  Leaves swirled around and became mulch on the

flagstones.

The Yellow Book

She picked up an NGS brochure which was advertising various local gardens

which were to open in Suttonford to support the Anacondas In Adversity!

charity: a cause which she and her daughter, Scheherezade, fervently

espoused.

She prayed for a meteorological change while stirring her Mocha, thus

destroying its award-winning fern imprint in choco-powder.

How much had she paid for this caffeine indulgence?  As much as could have

bought her three houses in Stoke-on-Trent. Really, social and even solitary

caffeine was becoming a luxury she could ill afford.  If her pension forecast

was anything to go by, she would be better supporting a Poundcafe

expansion from Kirby.

She flicked through last week’s FT supplement, How To Spend It.  Maybe

someone could publish a spoof version and add a final ironic Not to the title.

She picked up a less pretentious publication and started to read an article on

dogulators.  This had nothing to do with the abominable practice of dogging,

but was concerned with the various means and strategies for calculating

one’s canine friend’s true age.

Clammie thought that the formula was fairly simple: multiply by seven.

Apparently, like pension forecasts, it was a lot more complicated and involved

the recognition that some breeds age at different rates and that there are

periods when the pace accelerates and then slows.  No wonder she was so

confused about how her age of receipt of pension contributions kept varying

and she found it hard to focus on the ever-receding pot of gilt as it miraged

out of sight under the insubstantial rainbow of her transient life.

She would have to do some work to increase her contributions.  Maybe she

could create a garden design and take it to next year’s Chelsea show?  It

couldn’t be so hard to gain a gold medal.  There seemed to be a plethora of

them.

She had heard Alan Titchmarsh, no doubt irritated by Gavin’s criticisms, use the

terminological inexactitude: iconoclastic, in reference to some of the designs.

She had conjured up the image of a Cromwellian regiment of out-of-control

Roundheads smashing up garden gnomes with their pikestaffs.

Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper.jpg

Hey! What if she created a moving installation using such a – she hesitated to

adopt the over-exposed abstract noun that had broken out all over Chelsea-

using such an innovative concept?  She was sure that Diarmuid would be up for

a bit of Celtic licence as long as no one smashed a fibreglass leprechaun.  An

art garden would be the answer to her spiritual stagnation.  No- wait!- an Arp

garden.  Now she was really feeling her creative sap rise!

Yes, Hans Arp had made woodcuts of leaves and forms and had just thrown

them together at random.  She could imagine sitting on that elevated bench

with Alan T, discussing her concept.  She would refer to Dadaism and

geometrie vegetale and might even call the plot an Existential Garden for an

Age of Nihilism.

It would be a space where she had lost the plot!  She would have at its centre

two huge sculpted dice which would turn on an axis, like swivel-headed loons.

People might have to return a six to enter; or not.

She would impress Titchmarsh by echoing Arp: My garden represents a

secret, primal meaning slumbering beneath the world of appearances.

Chance points to an unknown but active principle of order and meaning

that manifests itself in the garden’s secret soul.  Alan would be blown away

as if by a giant leaf vacuum.  And the non-existence of any supporting

rationale would contain the ambivalence of the aforesaid appliance, as it

would contribute to a kind of chaos theory that, just like the leaf blower,

moved concepts around rather than forming them into a neat structure

and creating something useful, such as a compost heap.  The leaf vacuum-

a metaphor for our time.

Product Details

Secret Garden?  She could place a rusting metal outline of a Ben

Weatherstaff figure leaning on a spade at its centre and a robin

could buzz around on elastic over an empty wheelchair.  That might

suggest hope.  On alternative days she would replace the wheelchair

with a vandalised shopping trolley, representing mauvaise foi.  Brilliant!

Next year Diarmuid would not be bored, she could assure him.

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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