Vispo/drawing: Tired

Tired, RTomens, 2025

Our minds have grown tired...

It's conceivable that even the youngest (adult) mind may grow tired...tired of constantly scrolling, perhaps...tired of thinking about life - even as a teenager!

Meanwhile, at the other end of life, I have a good excuse - the accumulation of years can weigh heavy - memories are a burden! Carrying this mind and these bones around for almost 70 years! 

In Tired, The Walking Man (featured in previous pieces) has given up walking. He has laid himself down for a rest, trying to blank out the chatter of text, of people. He wants peace. He should visit the countryside, where the only sounds are those of the birds.

How To Write Poetry (1) / Heavy Metal addiction

How To Write Poetry 1, RTomens, 2025

Too much?

Are the drawn lines too thick? Do they overwhelm the typing?

I started a series called How To Write Poetry, based on the AI answer from a Google search. Perhaps I'll make enough of them to create a book. Imagining having done that, I then like to imagine some poor soul buying the book thinking they will learn how to write poetry. As long as they didn't buy it directly from me, otherwise they'd want their money back.

I'm not saying it's impossible for a How To text on writing poetry to succeed in helping to create the next ------  ------ (insert a great poet) but what does that even matter so long as whoever starts writing enjoys it? Don't be a snob! As long as I don't have to read the results...

How To Write Visual Poetry? Perhaps I should have asked that - damn! You can. See what 'it' says. 'It' knowing everything. AI can write Visual Poetry, I'm sure. Hold on, isn't half the fancy digital Text Art I see on X written by some kind of programming anyway? You know, the whizzy, pulsating, shimmering stuff you see. I blame Kenneth Goldsmith. 

So I printed part of the answer on paper that had already been treated then proceeded to type, first the vertical bank of lines running through it, then the double-typed angular lines and some wavy lines at the bottom. It wasn't enough. 

That noise you heard was me thinking (sounds like the rusty cogs of a knackered machine slowly turning). 

Pens! Yes, grab a pen and draw - that's what it needs. I picked out the Pentel N850 permanent marker and started. Minutes later I thought 'Fuck, that's too thick!'. But having started, what could I do? Abandon it? I very rarely abandon work. Carry on. Use some red. It was starting to look a right mess. 

Help! 

There's no-one to help you but yourself!

Spaces filled in on the right-hand side...yes...leaving holes through which some type is visible; I'm sure you noticed. 

How's it looking? Unusually, I couldn't tell. Is it total crap? OK? Good? 

Finally, black down the left-hand side to frame the typed section.

Put it to one side.

Get on with important stuff, such as listening to Venom...

As well as being addicted to typing Visual Poetry, I'm now addicted to Metal. It's never been fashionable. Never 'cool'. Now I like the fact that's it's neither. It was always there, since the 80s, being ignored by me. Gradually though, over the last year or so, I've been seduced by it (Metallica first, then Pantera and others). A few weeks back I bought A History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O'Neill in a charity shop. That did it. It's a humorous take but for a novice like me, informative too regarding bands I'd never heard of before. After all these years of listening to music, it's great to start enjoying a new (old) genre.

TTFN 

Drawing 364

RTomens, 2025

Back to the drawing board because using the typewriter is tricky since the physical 'event'. I'm unable to actually lift the Olympia Beast. I can move a stool to where it sits but...

Making any form of art is a challenge now - oh no - the psycho drama...

Drawing 364 was done using carbon paper, as you can probably tell. I like the texture carbon paper creates. I like to think it's somewhere between Cy Twombly and El Lissitzky  - it isn't, but you don't mind me fantasising, do you?

Comic strip erasure

 

I came across these whilst rooting around, back in time, in my files. Not sure if I've shown them before. Comic strip romance erased with heavy black pen.

Ink Drawing: Lady Poet / I was a poet once

 

RTomens, 2023

I've never known 'a large lady poet'...or any lady poets, for that matter. I was once a member of a writers group in Aylesbury that was run by a woman and a man who had studied English at university but didn't write in the creative sense, instead they encouraged me and others to write. At the time, I also wrote poetry and even performed it on stage a few times. I found it easy. Too easy, probably; composing poems in my girlfriend's flat on the morning of the day I was due to read. She was first attracted to me because I told a group she was sat with in The Green Man that I'd just written a new short story since they asked when I approached the table, drink in hand and I noted the look on her face at the news I was a writer. I'll never forget that look. It came from me being impressive to a woman. That's probably the only time I've said anything so impressive to a woman. She wasn't a poet. In the end, she wasn't a lady either and treated me like dirt - huh! Well, we were both having affairs with others.

Vispo: The Verge of Existence / Drawing: Singing, with her

RTomens, 2023

An appropriate title since this blog is teetering on the edge of extinction - but not quite so dramatic are the circumstances that it's near 'death' - I've just been busy doing other things, like...

...you know...

...and drawing...

RTomens, 2023

...for now I must draw this post to a close because the chicken is nearly cooked.

TTFN!

Tom Phillips R.I.P.

Tom Phillips passed away recently so I thought I'd post a few pics of pages from his legendary A Humument project. These are my copies, obviously. There's one that I don't have and a couple more on the way. He always added to each new version so they're all worth getting. You can read all about the project on his site so I won't say much more. 

You can find better images on the web...so I don't know why I posted these....except as an acknowledgment, I suppose....that and the fact that I wanted something easy to do whilst my brain is slowly awakened by a coffee before I start making my own art. Here's an altered page I made a couple of days ago...

Drawing/Print: Art-Like / Madeleine Moment / Film: Living

 

RTomens, 2022

I had a kind of madeleine moment this afternoon when biting into a McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestive biscuit - something I haven't eaten for so many years, decades, even. The crumbly biscuit...milky chocolate...the satisfying yet unfulfilling experience which makes you want to eat more and more and more...deluding yourself that you will be totally satisfied the way you are when you eat something heavier, more wholesome...but no...you just start to feel a bit sick...

I lazily refer to Proust, not really knowing what I mean, except to say that the taste instantly took me back - but when I went 'there', I found nothing but a blank, a ghostly presence (me) in a misty past; time compressed to a single point, a nostalgic dot...

Talking of nostalgia (for times never lived in), we went to see Living the other day. It's directed by Oliver Hermanus from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro and between them, a South African and someone born in Japan (although he moved to England when he was five), they've created a quintessentially English film. By which I mean they've captured the restraint and repressed emotions of 50s English life as we imagine it; in the office, at least, but also in society, best expressed here at the funeral. Jamie D. Ramsay's cinematography is sumptuous, using a rich colour palette straight from the era. The script is spot on and the story of small triumphs perfectly told. Mr. Williams' (Bill Nighy) delight in discovering the 'thrill' of an arcade game encapsulates the smallness of a life lived within constant self-imposed constraints. A beautiful film.

Drawing/Print: Maybe She Is Not Perfect

 

RTomens, 2022

Heavy Max Ernst / Drawing/collage: Have Your Say / Rave on RAW party flyer 1990

 

Oscar Wilde quipped that the only thing he couldn't resist was temptation but I do resist quite a few books in the shop unless something exceptional comes in and Max Ernst by Edward Quinn (pub 1984) was one such exception. It had been sitting there, an art mono-lith atop several other books, for a few weeks. Perhaps the £40 price tag proved especially resistible to potential buyers. With energy bills set to soar now is not the time to indulge in such luxuries! That said, it's not uncommon for someone to spend around £40 on various books, such as a man who bought some the other day, my vispo book included! Turned out it was for his son, who was standing with him and whose face lit up when I said I was the creator. Now that's the correct way to respond (ha-ha!). Don't give me a shrug of indifference because my ego is that fragile. Then, not satisfied with the signature inside, he wanted it dedicated to him, so I obliged, feeling, for a few seconds, like a Proper Artist/Author. 

Back to the Ernst book. It was only when I decided to flick through it that I realised it was something special, more than just another artist monograph. The reproductions are exceptional and large (the book's massive) but more than that Quinn adopted a 'collage' style in the way the texts from various sources are included...and it features texts by Ernst himself. He also personally oversaw the content selection. Yes, finally, it's the Max Ernst book to end cravings for Max Ernst books.

RTomens, 2022

Something I made in the shop a few days ago. Such activity keeps me occupied when it's quiet. Yesterday and man bought a Sickert monograph, asking me if I'd hold it for him whilst he walked around town. He came back and pulled a bottle of whisky out of his bag, saying he was going to enjoy it and the book in his back garden. Then he offered me a sip. I refused. He insisted. I gave in to temptation and poured a glug in my flask full of coffee. That's the kind of customer I like! 

Picked up The Wicked Ways of Malcolm McLaren by Craig Bomberg in the Oxfam shop this morning. At £2.95, it was another thing I couldn't resist.

Inside it was a little card flyer for RAW. It clinched the deal when I found it whilst flicking through the book in the shop. Not that I know anything about RAW. Having done a bit of research it looks like the same club that got big during the, er, New Rave. Good job the date was written on by someone, later presumably. I was never raving, I was too busy Rare Groovin' and even Hip-Hoppin' about as well as Jazz Jivin' around in my own basement club, Giant Steps on Frith Street, Soho. As the new Summer of Love got under way a bit earlier a friend who did 'rave' would turn up at our club, out of his bonce of chemicals. Luckily he actually was training to be a chemist (or something) so he knew what he was 'doing'. 

That's all for now, folks. See you soon. 

Recent collage/drawings

RTomens, 2022

RTomens, 2022

RTomens, 2022

 

Collage/Drawing: Important Verbal Skills

RTomens, 2022

Keeping myself occupied in the shop yesterday I made this. I found a letter stamp kit for just £3 in the kind of shop that sells 'everything', including books on war and popular novels, along with artist's materials...but you'd have to be pretty desperate to buy the paints because, as you know, cheap paints are disgusting colours. I'm happy with the rubber stamp kit though. 

Collage/Drawing: Space Event / Starlink space age coincidence / No Direction Home book cover art by Alun Hood / The Bureau of Lost Culture Michael Moorcock interview

RTomens, 2022

6.15 a.m. I gaze up up the dark-turning-deep-blue pre-dawn sky and see UFOs! UFOs, that is, until researched 'lines of white lights in the sky' and found out they were part of SpaceX's satellite internet project - whoooo! Part of me was disappointed that I hadn't seen a row of alien spacecraft flying in very tight formation and part of me was amazed by the earth-based human endeavour. By a suitably X-Files-type, spooky sci-fi coincidence I had made the image above, Space Event, just yesterday. So it came to pass, art predicted what would happen the very next day - a real space event.

Talking of outer space, inner space and sci-fi, here's my Cover of the Day, picked up this morning from a charity shop on my way to the bookshop...

...a gem, eh? Artwork by Alun Hood. I scanned my copy because those online weren't very good. The collection is promising, though, but also misleading because there are short stories by other authors too. Why they've packaged it as a Spinrad collection is a mystery. I didn't notice until I examined the credits once I was home. Turns out the first and title story is by...hold on...it says 'copyright Michael Moorcock' but research tells me it's by Spinrad - huh? So Moorcock had the copyright because it appeared in New Worlds 2? OK, what about The Weed Of Time, stated as copyright by Anne McCaffrey? Or The National Pastime copyright Harry Harrison? It seems that all the stories are by Spinrad by some other authors hold the copyright. How did that happen? You figure it out.

Whilst mentioning Moorcock, I recommend this podcast from the Bureau of Lost Culture. It's the first part of what was apparently a long discussion, the rest of which will be aired in the future. Check out other episodes too because it's an interesting show.

 

A pile of books rendered insignificant / A drawing/collage / Joggers and the Road To Nowhere

 

Having worked in the bookshop for seven months I haven't exactly become blasé about books but...there's a pile on the chair, just dropped off and needing to be shelved...I leave them there for a while...I look at them and instead of seeing books begin to see no more than a pile of neatly-bound paper...but aren't books supposed to be...magical? Spiritual? Alluring? Yes, yes, I know, but only having worked in a bookshop would you understand an encroaching...ennui...a...listless (?) attitude of the Just Books Mind which renders thinking close to 'familiarity breeds contempt' but not quite since I have not turned from book-lover to hater...only...yes, I do kick them around sometimes (ha-ha!) but only those I consider unworthy of careful treatment. 

I would never, for instance, kick a classic Penguin, of course. I throw books into a place on the floor (on top of others) relating to the category above when someone is standing in the way of me slotting them in - and I laugh to myself at the reaction of customers who may be startled by a book landing near them or disgusted, perhaps, at my treatment of precious books.

This being a quiet time of year in all shops, presumably, especially mid-week, which is when I'm working, I draw to keep myself occupied. I have behind the counter pens, paper, Pritt Stick, a ruler and stencil with circles. People insist on interrupting the creation of artistic masterpieces! But I always get to finish. Here's one I made on Monday...

RTomens, 2022

Whilst locking up the bike at the market this morning I'm passed by joggers, of course. They're always about around the market. The early ones have no human obstacles to get around. Later, when the place is busy, the joggers must navigate their course like downhill skiers swerving around poles. Sometimes they have to stop and one can almost see the steam coming out of their ears as they do so.

I thought more about joggers as I locked up. Why do they annoy me? Is it simply because I'm not one of the lycra-clad breed of fitness fanatics? A middle-management pastime - bah! But I suppose middle-management types are as necessary as company directors and the minions. I think of David Byrne 'running' in the Road To Nowhere video because joggers, whilst going 'somewhere' are at the same time going 'nowhere' because the primary goal is just to run, not to reach a point. 

So we come to the treadmill-of-life theory. But David, we can't all be creatively successful to the point of considerable financial gain! Most of us just have to Work. To pay the bills. Once upon a time I would have sneered at those 'going nowhere' as if I was going somewhere by being on the dole. Yes, I've lived the Drop Out life but since then I've realised that the benefits of Working outweigh being wilfully unemployed. Only, mind you, if you have the balance right. Yes, that old Work/Life balance...the kind of thing my former employers used to bang on about whilst middle-management types would definitely not be happy with you should you opt for Life over Work when Work needed doing to meet a deadline! Some people are better cut out for Work than others. Some people are ambitious. They manage a successful career...and still make time to go jogging...

paper collage/Drawing: The Linesman Who Was Late

RTomens, 2021

 A5 collage. A quickie! He was late because he was having a Warholian(?) dream about a cow...obviously. 

Drawing/Collage

RTomens, 2021

 

RTomens, 2021

Two more done in the shop. 

Collage/Drawings / Camden riots?

RTomens, 2021

Odd as it sounds, working in a bookshop I rarely feel inclined to read whilst I'm there. I suppose it's a result of being surrounded by words! Read books, I mean. I do read stuff online (although that's minimal because I can't handle the small screen, or rather, my eyes can't) and go on Facebook. 

Recently trade has been very slow. It's a regular lull before people go consumer-crazy (on books, hopefully) in the name of Christmas. So what do I do? I take a ruler, pens, paper and torn pages from photo books with me to make small collages/drawings. People do occasionally insist on interrupting me to buy something (the nerve!) but I've managed to get a few done.

RTomens, 2021

RTomens, 2021

I sometimes prop them on the counter to prove what a genius I am (ha-ha). A woman was interested in one but didn't seem to want to pay for it. I would have said 'Make me an offer' but the chance didn't arise. One day a girl bought two of my books and a print. When I said they were mine she smiled. Just smiled. I don't think she understood English. She didn't realise she was buying from the multi-talented creative genius standing before her...ha-ha-ha! 

One girl came in with a couple of friends. I'd guess she was in her late teens. She asked me if I knew anything about riots in Camden. ??? What? Actual riots? Yes. Er. When? Recently? She didn't seem to know what she was talking about. I scanned my brain to recall any riots in Camden...nope. Did she means books about riots in Camden? I looked for any books we might have about riots in the UK but couldn't find one. Did she think there had been riots in Camden? Was she mad? Or just...stupid? Where did she get the idea that there have ever been riots in Camden? Turns out she was going to write about something that didn't exist. Namely, riots in Camden. I said we don't riot in England (smile). We make a cup of tea instead. I know there have been riots. I was at the Poll Tax demo that turned into a riot. I wondered what the hell she knew about riots, such as those that took place in America recently. I made a half-hearted attempt to broaden the subject but all she could muster was a smile and a 'Hmm'. I asked her if she knew what false flags were. She didn't. I briefly explained before deciding to shut up otherwise I would have started to describe the media's desire to lie about certain 'rioters' etc and probably bored her to death. Despite her chosen subject, she seemed clueless, politically.

Right, I'm off now to bash my pork. 

It breaks up the sinews and tenderises it.

You didn't think I meant something else, did you?

Tsk-tsk.

Drawing: Gods and Demons

RTomens,2021

I've been doing a lot of typing recently for an art project that I've been asked to contribute to - the exhibition is next year. So for a change this afternoon I dusted off the pens and got drawing.

Drawing/collage: Single 5590

 

RTomens, 2021

Ticket to ride? In 1929, no less! Found the ticket in a book...but which one I can't really recall...I should make a note of such things but in the excitement of finding ephemera and photographing it I forget where it came from and being a good bookseller, by then I have placed the book where it belongs. The ticket was in perfect condition...uncreased, not soiled...which, when you think it's nearly a century old, is incredible. How could it sit in a book for that long...and how many hands has the book passed through? Now thinking about that, very few, otherwise the ticket would have been thrown away. Actually, I think the ticket was put in the book (which was old, that much I do remember) and put on a shelf where it sat until...the owner died and our shop was called to a house clearance? Probably. I've yet to go on a house clearance job but I suspect it would be harrowing...sad...you know? To handle someone's possessions, their books, which they have accumulated over decades.

I do sometimes wonder what will happen to my books when I'm 'called'. Up There is shall be getting drunk with Dieter Roth and Eduardo Paolozzi, of course. We might even collaborate on some art, assuming we're allowed the materials. I mean, is Up There like the mythical desert island where you're only allowed to take a few things? If so, what would Dieter take? A coloured pen set and a massive roll of paper which, tragically, must run out at some point...? What would Paolozzi take?  A printer? Scrap metal? Hope he didn't forget the soldering iron...

Before I 'go' my books will have found a damned good home, I hope. Hold on, these thoughts of my demise are too gloomy...

I suppose my art will live on in the virtual domain! There's a thought. Someone discovering it years after I'm gone...I really should write my own Wiki entry just so the people of the future can find out who I was. But what would I say? Writing a brief bio as requested by those wishing to show my art is hard enough. I can't do a 'professional' CV because...well, I don't have a list of impressive colleges that I've attended, or another recording all the impressive exhibitions I've been it...poor me....I haven't got much of a leg(acy) to stand on!

The next time I get a bus somewhere outside of London (I don't have to pay for travel in town) perhaps I'll stick it in a book and put that book somewhere safe, never to be sold or given away. Trouble is, the ticket will never be as handsome, or sturdy, as the one in this drawing.

Judgement of Taste / Making zines / Art, ego and taste

 

RTomens, 2021

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. 

- Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

You've got to chuckle at that, haven't you? In the first edition of my zine, Ego, I quoted John Cassavetes when he said 'Ego is not a four-letter word'.  Ego is, after all, just Latin for "I" and the 'I'dea of zines for some of us was to have total control of a collection of opinions, artwork etc. Of course it was egotistical; it was me and many others showing the world (ignoring the fact that only a very small part of it would get to see) how smart, or funny we were...oh...and what Good Taste we had - guilty! 

When your taste is a minority one compared to the lumpen masses it's impossible, at some stage, not to feel the urge to declare it even louder, to blow your own trumpet whilst the philistines hammer at the gates. Siege mentality? For decades it felt like I was under siege from a silent army swarming around me, bombarding me with all that signified their lack of taste - be it in film, art, literature, music...and the media feed of the mundane. 

Ego was borne partly out of that feeling and, of course, enthusiasm caused by the ripple of zines which did flow against the tsunami of mediocrity. Doing a zine felt like a big gesture, regardless of how it looked or even what it contained - it was your thing, totally yours. As small as production figures may have been it felt like you were part of a scene, at least.

'Build it and they will come' only works to a limited degree. Yes, you 'build' something and yes, a few people do arrive. Having overcome the disappointment that the like-minded souls you've attracted barely amount to a hill of beans in this world, you settle into the idea that at least some people share your taste or appreciate what you do. 

The internet supposedly changed all that. 'Look, the world is yours to conquer!' Then you discover that the world isn't looking and it takes an incredible amount of dedication to social networking to gain a larger audience. Guess what: that's more than most creators can be bothered with. I should say, more than some of us can be bothered with, especially we who were not born with a smartphone in our hands. 

Art-making is connected to taste, naturally. Whatever you make can't help but reflect your taste...in colour, subject matter, medium etc. Taste is also related to knowledge. I hesitate to say 'education'. Ignorance can be bliss, or just plain ignorance. How can anyone ignorant of certain artists, writers or musicians know what they're missing and how much better their lives might be once the commonplace is overshadowed by...'great art'? Yeah, it's a matter of taste. But is it? Our tastes are shaped only by what we get to know. Isn't it all context? We know a film is great, but we know with more certainty because we're aware of all the cinematic dross that's been made. The rubbish makes us appreciate brilliance even more.

Surprise, surprise, the social network proved to be a battle of egos. Everyone wants attention. We're all, to greater and lesser degrees, clamouring to be heard above the online din of millions offering opinions and, yes, artwork. 'But what about me?!' For all that mine is a very small voice, barely heard, I hate the idea of being an 'influencer', someone with thousands of 'followers'. The pressure to perform! Imagine millions hanging on your every word and, by default, all those others watching for when you say something 'wrong'. No chance of me being 'cancelled'. The very nature of what I do denies anyone the opportunity, or a reason to do so. That said, I have been...shunned, but then, I've learnt that even so-called 'friends' can only take so much of me being me - ha-ha.

Well, that's all for now, folks. Don't forget to Share, Like, Subscribe...(wink).