Category: Events

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This Easter my wife and I travelled to Rome. What follows is a simple journal that records some of the things that we did, with a selection of photographs from each day.

Good Friday

After sunset on Good Friday, we attend the Way of the Cross (Via Crucis) at the Roman Colosseum, which comprises prayers from fifteen families who have encountered suffering and loss in profound ways. We see Pope Francis seated above the procession, and at the end of the traditional fourteen stations he bestows an Apostolic Blessing on the gathering. An incredibly moving experience.

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This week, it was my great privilege to visit the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, California. The beautiful Muir family home was restored from dereliction by the National Park Service, and pays tribute to the father of modern environmental conservation.

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Catherine Morley on editing a new collection of essays that explores the legacy of September 11 on modern and contemporary literature

We begin our conversation having marked the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. What led you to put together this new essay collection?

I have been interested in way in which we have come to narrativise and conceptualise the September 11th terrorist attacks for some time now. They occurred shortly after I moved to the UK to start my doctoral studies. I remember, very vividly, standing before the window of a shop selling televisions and the image of the plane hitting the second tower. It seemed unreal, and indeed at the time many commentators noted that it seemed a moment designed for mass televisual consumption. I thought then that my watching this terrible image unfold across multiple screens seemed like something from a Don DeLillo novel. I remember writing a short diary piece about it at the time, how it reminded me of the Airborne Toxic Event in DeLillo’s White Noise. Since then, I have always been keen to see how novelists, dramatist and poets might approach representing something that seemed to defy representation by its vast scale. So, when offered the opportunity by Bloomsbury to put this volume together I jumped at the chance.

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A secret charity auction with contributions from major artists and emerging talent

Art on a Postcard raises money for The Hepatitis C Trust through an annual secret postcard auction and ‘postcard lotteries’ which occur throughout the year. In recent years, work has been donated from established artists such as Peter Blake, Damien Hirst, Harland Miller, Gavin Turk, Rachel Howard, Gilbert and George, Polly Morgan, John Wragg RA, Stephen Chambers RA, Micheal Craig-Martin and Cecily Brown and emerging talent such as David Shillinglaw, Hayden Kays and Daisy Cook as well as urban artists, Ben Eine, Pure Evil and Inkie and photographers Dougie Wallace and Rankin. The project was founded by Gemma Peppé.

“I’m delighted to be part of this year’s The Hepatitis C Trust’s Art on a Postcard Secret Auction. While the secret auction democratises art, funds raised will help The Trust in its work towards ridding the county of hepatitis C, a killer disease which disproportionally affects an underprivileged community.”

— Grayson Perry

I caught up with some of this year’s artists to ask them about their involvement with the cause, and how they met the challenge set by the project. (more…)

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I caught up with Katie Gramich to talk about a conference she is co-organizing to celebrate the life and work of poet Edward Thomas

In April 2017, Cardiff University will be hosting a conference to celebrate the Welsh writer Edward Thomas. Can you say a little bit about the timing of the conference? Do you think it’s time for a revaluation of Thomas’ life and work?

Edward Thomas died in the Battle of Arras at Easter 1917, so the conference at Cardiff University in April 2017 is a centenary conference to commemorate a distinctive and unusual writer whose life was cut short in the First World War. Thomas wrote all of his poetry in the last two years of his life – between December 1914 and December 1916 – prompted to do so partly by his friendship with the American poet, Robert Frost, whom he met in the summer of 1913,  and partly by the new and pressing circumstances of the war. It is so sad to think that only six of his poems were published in his lifetime – a small pamphlet under the pseudonym ‘Edward Eastaway’ in 1916. (more…)

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Revisiting the jazz innovator’s much overlooked minor classic

Ornette Coleman with his saxophone during a rehearsal for The Empty Foxhole, September 1966. Photograph: Francis Wolff.
Ornette Coleman with his saxophone during a rehearsal for The Empty Foxhole, September 1966. Photograph: Francis Wolff.

Ornette Coleman‘s The Empty Foxhole was recorded at the Van Gelder studio 50 years ago today. It was his first studio recording for the Blue Note label, and the avant-garde composer wastes no time performing trumpet, violin, and his signature alto-saxophone. Longtime collaborator Charlie Haden (who followed this website before he passed away) appears on bass. But the personnel is perhaps most notable for the debut appearance of Coleman’s son, Denardo, on drums: he was just ten years old at the time.

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A DVD of Dorian Supin’s 2015 documentary Arvo Pärt – Even if I lose everything is now available. (Source)