Work Work Work

Photos: Port Side mirror:Ed Napper for Harcourt; Night Sky cabinet: West Elm; Twist stool: Tamasine Osher; Ferro Vitro Chandelier: Cox, London.

The last couple of weeks have been ridiculously exhausting; I seem to have been deluged by a tsunami of end-of-year work madness, with everyone rushing around like lunatics. I’ve had one day off in 12 days and I can tell, that’s for sure. I was going to measure my blood pressure the other day and I decided against it! In the midst of all the Christmas hullaballoo, with people apparently possessed by a frenzied spirit of consumerism, I bring you offerings of beautiful products you can admire without feeling the crazed urge to own them. Very nice eye-candy, I think we can all agree. I always find it ironic that our society now celebrates the nativity of a man who owned absolutely nothing and left a single robe as his sole noted possession by buying as much stuff as we can, and overindulging for a solid 12 days. Mental.

Having decided that I am currently working just to live, as opposed to having some time to actually live, I’ve been berating myself for ignoring things like writing and painting. I haven’t painted a single picture this year. I appal myself. I was looking at pictures of Orozco’s amazing murals in the Hospicio Cabanas in Guadalajara and they’ve inspired me. They remind me of the drawings for Josep Maria Subirachs’ sculptures on the Sagrada Familia. I love the work of both artists.

 

Photos: Hospicio Cabanas, Guadalajara; Passion Facade: Subirachs, Sagrada Familia

While we are all looking forward to a nice and I’m sure well-deserved break at Christmas, Orozco’s murals made me think of the wicked aid blockade currently being perpetrated by Saudi Arabia against the people of Yemen while the whole world sits on its hands and looks the other way. The season of peace and goodwill. I’m hoping the carol service I’m going to this Sunday will restore some of that peace and goodwill. If you’re feeling generous, please donate towards providing for those affected by the Yemeni and Rohingya Crises.

I’ve got a ready-made cure for any bah-humbuggers out there: Harry McLintocks’s ‘In the Big Rock Candy Mountain’. It’s one of my favourites from the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ soundtrack. Have a lovely weekend at the Big Rock Candy Mountain 🙂

One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, “Boys, I’m not turning
I’m headed for a land that’s far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we’ll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There’s a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers’ trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I’m bound to go
Where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall
The winds don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There’s a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain’t no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I’m bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
….
I’ll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

 

/by
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