clogs, kangaroos, penguins and the strangeness of foot...

please: if anyone else is destined for a little 'snuff' of the candle this week is there any chance it could all be over by Monday? Just so that we can mourn in our holidays. Have a little excuse for a drink. sorry Robin..) Not having to host or appear on talk shows in tears or bravery once September is back. We don't want to curtail creativity but..really it is all a little hard for a little bear to bear. And SHAME on you Robin Williams. YOU should still be making the jokes, not putting up with me treading water.

Anyone remember Lauren Bacall: brave bitch to have acceded to a Lars von Trier film;) And like Robin Williams, she never rested on laurels. The Forger looks interesting.

Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe popped off this week.
Two obits from Oz press.

Somewhere in one of my unopened ‘peripatetic’ boxes is an original CD of his Burke & Wills 1995 soundtrack that, stranger than fiction, was found from a ‘bootlegging’ street seller in an obscure Italian town on the Adriatic. Now how appropriate is that!

p.s. who knew 'Mumble' loved YouTube.... (though not its genuflecting attitude to copyright. But: Mumble will be very pleased with the royalties of his new Glob Warm, Bam Mam No Thanks Chum,We Loves Ice album released reluctantly by New Murdoch News Inc in 2020 and much to their chagrin earning more than... (well as Steve Sondheim once wisely wrote "don't finish that sentence")...Mumble is quoted as saying: "...sure beats having your ****__*** stolen at the American Bar in the Hamptons"

now...who stole my beans....?

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Very beautiful BBC 2014 Proms performance of Mahler’s 4th Symphony from conductor Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra. What maestro Haitink (now 85) doesn’t know about conducting Gustav Mahler is probably not that important. (as the BBC Prom link has expired, I'm sure Maestro Haitink wouldn't mind me handing the baton to the late great Claudio Abbado (28min in - before and after is equally !!!). The slow movement of Mahler’s 5^th Symphony (the Death in Venice soundtrack) is very familiar yet in so many ways the 3^rd movement of the 4^th Symphony is even more soulful and scary. It’s as if a church from a Lyonel Feininger painting is manifested on a teetering clifftop and all the animals bow their heads joining forces out of hiding to pay respects to the dead creature amongst them under the clear blue sky. That’s until…

The BBC's Mahler page

ROBIN WILLIAMS (1951-2014)

I always thought it strange to ask for autographs. But my mother gave me a book for them one Christmas. Strange because my Mum knew a shit load of influential people and never paraded any photos of her and ‘them’ in front of me. Even as an aspiring young actor I couldn’t see the point. I actually met these people. And then actually worked beside them! Why do I need a squiggle on a sheet of paper? Or God forbid the 2014 ‘Andy Warhol’ equivalent photo op of a ‘selfie’. Perhaps Rene Descartes on acid: I digitize with them therefore I am. My Mum was actually, cleverly preparing me for the world’s reality: that it is very hard to sparkle in that great sea. Something I thought I’d surpassed her on but in realty has always and will always be the same. Mr Williams would have chortled at that autograph album with great affection for my Mum I am sure. When you see a documentary about how being obsessed with a particular rock band or whoever saved the participants lives I totally buy it. At least it beats drugs!

I remember watching Robin on a UK talk show many years ago- was he happy, sad?- it is always hard to tell because great talents just don’t indulge themselves like that. But he was tired, jet-lagged maybe on something but then most probably maybe not.  He was as sharp and funny, funny as sharp as ever. He laughed at a pair of scissors. (This was the post 9/11 years. But he was respectful and understanding if totally frustrated by the idiocy of it all.) He didn’t say “oh btw did you pack the Islamic joke book yourself, sir?- nor –‘I hear the ‘car bomb’ part isn’t that funny as they got the wiring wrong. Had they never heard of someone called a joke writer?’

I remember Robin bouncing down the center aisle stairs at the 1999 Deauville Film Festival to join the very very great of Hollywood as they gathered on stage to be gaped at and honored. He didn’t bounce to be noticed. Or different. It was, in truth, just all a bit of a circus at the end of the day. But when the circus comes to town it always makes people smile and gasp. I saw the Broadway revival of Pippin. I thought of Robin at the ending. The illusion. The reality. The something that you never want to take away from people’s dreams. And yet you just know it may well never happen without dire consequences.

To my mind Robin’s greatest film roles were One Hour Photo and World’s Greatest Dad. Both were about the longingly perpetuated myth of family and belonging. When people say that Robin Williams brought laughter and hope into people’s lives rather than despair it is no truer than in these two films. World’s Greatest Dad isn’t about cynicism it is about human hypocrisy. And how through exposing that one may indeed find one’s true family and being. Not even the 'great Dad', though, is portrayed to be without a sincerely self-serving streak.

You are now in a beautiful place Robin. The world always disappointed you and yet the irony was that you would have had absolutely nothing to say if the people were perfect. You would have had 3.2 kids, 2 dogs and a BBQ every summer where you would all bitch and preen and be happily, happily nothing. YOU was what people aspired to be. A free, intelligent, irreverent yet respectful spirit. (Did I say rich: the very thing you just were not that interested in. Unless a divorce came along;)

We will never make that movie together now Robin. But does it matter? We already made it! The movie was there always in our heads. And our hearts. And that is all that really matters in this hilly world of beans that complains about whether the little 'bleeders' were baked or organic. Just to be a bean. Now isn’t it?

The Daily Show Robin Williams survival Omnibus

Aladdin - Friend Like me 
 A whole new world

There is so so much wonderful Mr Williams on the internet to cheer up everyone. But I forgot Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. If Robin Williams had only ever made one movie he would always be remembered for this: its love, sincerity, lack of judgment, bravery. And you can’t help thinking that if someone had only asked Robin to come to the park that tomorrow morning this week, given him $100 and asked if we could film him. Spending it, giving it to the bums, or to the birds, the plants: simply saying hello to the world. He may have just said YES. He loved to work. To see. To listen. What dreams may come…

The Fisher King (1991)

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Mahler's 9th Symphony at the BBC Proms
and of course there will always be Claudio Abbado

Ryoji Ikeda: spectra (Dusk until dawn, 4 - 11 August 2014)