Saturday 31 January 2009

John Martyn

Add Image
Got up and made tea with one bag of Twinning's Assam. Left the Mrs asleep. She works hard. I sat and drank in the gloom of the dawn through a grey sky over Lac Léman with just a couple of spots to light me while plugging the headphones into my Creative Zen mp3 player.

Went into Artists, selected John Martyn and listened to him growl through Excuse Me Mister.

Yesterday, 30th Jan., I read John Martyn had died. 60 years old. Only three and a bit more than me. Burned out like Cassady in much the same way as Kerouac. At least, I thought, he has left us a legacy. His music, his words, will live on. As an artist he has left us something.

What would I leave?

Nothing apart from my jeans and they were passed to me and so aren't really mine in any case.

I thought I'd load up some more tracks and would love to put one here for anyone passing by to listen to...

And, as I sat listening in the early morning as the household slept - I looked at the clutter on the coffee table. There surrounding the large blue moorish bowl from Granada in Spain filled with clemenvillas and large juicy oranges, was the detritus of the previous day...

Amongst them;

A book called "Derek Jarman's Garden", Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking. A book called "Japanese Gardens - KYOTO" and a Danish Magazine called "Living Architecture".

All human culture represented there. All things made, or written, by people no longer here but legacies left.

Gardens, buildings; to live in, work in, play and pray in. Food - the ingredients and how to prepare, cook and then enjoy them. An artist's life channelled, in Jarman's case, into a wild space.

To those; add the music of John Marty
n.

2 comments:

Nettie Edwards said...

Great post Mr.P. Have never visited Jarman's garden but the book about it is a constant inspiration. Spent yesterday evening listening to John Martin and feeling sad that another genius has left the building.

Anonymous said...

Every now and again I see something made of stone or metal, not plant life, and think THAT would look great in the garden... a pile of stones with an old garden fork sticking out, waiting for a climbing plant to attach itself....