Friday 13 March 2009

Curtis Dagenais is guilty they say

Up, Down.

A murky and ambiguous tale in the end, the jury pandering to bourgeois sentiment seems to me and ignoring loose ends. But what could they do in a place like Saskatoon? Like Rob Clarke, the only adult on the scene, there were cross pressures up the yin-yang. The Mounties got their man by fair means and foul. The maximum sentence possible was handed down by Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench Judge Gerald Allbright, and endorsed heartily by Assistant Commissioner Dale McGowan of the RCMP ... well, I guess ...

Maybe young Luca Bourdages will figgure it all out one day ...


Curtis Alfred DagenaisArt DagenaisBill RoeBill RoeLuca Bourdages

And here tonight I stumble upon another murky and ambiguous tale; first told (in this incarnation) by George Crabbe (1754-1832) around 1810, a few years before Waterloo, in a longish poem called The Borough, available at Gutenberg; picked up by Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) for his opera Peter Grimes, libretto by Montagu Slater (1902-1956), available at Radio Rai (Radio Audizioni Italiane); a line of which, "I hear those voices that will not be drowned," is picked up by Maggi Hambling (1945-) an English artist making a comemorative Benjamin Britten sculpture on Aldeburgh beach. Britten frequented this beach apparently. The sculpture could be considered a sort of third derivative I suppose.

The story is of murder and death and abuse and compulsion and social injustice, the gamut. Peter Grimes is not exactly a nice fellow - a fisherman and his desk-hands keep dying ... I have not seen the opera; I have not read either Crabbe's poem or the libretto in detail; I have seen the sculpture only in photographs. Gays and lesbians, oh my. On a par, you could say, with what I know of Curtis Dagenais and Spiritwood.

George Crabbe, The BoroughBenjamin BrittenJon Vickers as Peter GrimesBen Heppner as Peter GrimesMaggi HamblingAldeburgh, Maggi Hambling, ScallopAldeburgh, Maggi Hambling, ScallopAldeburgh, Maggi Hambling, Scallop

A-and nothing is complete without Boticelli & Yemanjá.

Birth of Venus, Jeri WylieYemanjá, Mar GrossoYemanjá, Porto Alegre

Someone who wants to know more about Iemanjá should read Jorge Amado's Mar Morto, there are English translations as Sea of Death. (Jorge Amado, English)

Down.

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