Days of Future Passed

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Yep - another U-turn: Attenborough's programme is on as I write, and a softening of attitude towards Lineker appears to be taking place. Amazing what a bit of real public opinion can achieve in such a short space of time, innit? It just goes to show how shallow the thinking of the establishment really is... However, as you might gather from the image at the head of tonight's scribble, that's not the point of - well - tonight's scribble.

This singular little painting - it measures about 7"x5" is a treasured little artefact - again thought lost - and despite its obviously strange qualities, having found it again means a lot to me. It is untitled and signed Pasco Dog, 1987. Pasco Dog was Al Moore's alter ego, who produced artwork in a parallel stream to his other stuff. The rationale behind this bifurcation was never explained, but I understood it anyway. The employment of multiple identities has a rich history in the arts. This particular image, when I first encountered it, was so disturbing, I was physically, let alone mentally, upset by it. And my reaction to the thing led Al to give it to me on the spot.

The thing was, that four years before, we were travelling back through France from a holiday in Saint Jean-Le-Vieux with John and Sandra, breaking the journey back to our port, in Épernay, for the night. It has to be added, that at this point I was suffering from the second-worst hangover of my life, and an early and timely repast of Chicken Marengo was washed down with but a couple of mouthfuls of wine, followed by a very early night's sleep. That sleep, however, was dominated by the most horrendous nightmare, which centred around the underground 'exercise' scene from the film 'Midnight Express' - horrible enough in itself - but, in my fevered brain's interpretation of it, all the inmate's faces had exactly the same appearance as the bizarre little figure in the painting, made four years later. Weird, and still disturbing to this day. I'll be re-framing this one: it deserves wall-space again after so many years, and will serve as a suitable memento mori and proof that time, consciousness and causation are truly entangled in ways we really don't understand...


Comments

  1. Anonymous13 March 2023 at 15:23

    It reminded me of Trout Mask Replica mate!
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

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