Animals of October

A rare outing last night to have a substantial meal with some alcohol and a bit of time among some art. We took ourselves down to HOME, Manchester's latest arts hub success story, the evolution of the legendary Cornerhouse cinema. Usually a place buzzing like the proverbial Manchester bee, now just doing the best it can in spite of everything. They've managed to get their theatre and cinema programmes up and running again, and they have the luxury of a spacious restaurant and bar for their lockdown-approved food provision. We were there, predominantly, to scoot around their art gallery, which has reopened with a new exhibition this weekend. It is a triptych of three solo exhibitions united by their use of illustration and their themes relevant to the current situation : Mike S Redmond and Faye Coral Johnson's Bubbling Pitch - a series of feverish and lively dream-like sketches, Joy Yamusangie's Blue Glass Fortunes - a striking exploration of the Congolese diaspora in mo...

Content warning: Frequent mentions of animal harm and death - skip this post if you are sensitive to such issues Where are we at with that 'No Animals Were Harmed' disclaimer that we get at the end of film credits? The welfare of animals is one of the things that most lifts me out of the 'suspension of disbelief' when watching a movie or TV programme, as I'm sure is the case for many of us. Who else ends up quickly doing various mental gymnastics to convince yourself that what you just saw was CGI, or very good training, or some kind of hyper-realistic model? It's usually not a problem for your big blockbuster where an expensive bit of invisible CGI is more easily and slickly incorporated, but I do worry about some of these 'artier' lower budget films that lean more towards realism and authenticity. Yesterday I watched the 2017 film The Rider , directed by Chloe Zhao, and it was abundantly clear on multiple occasions that the horses were not having a par...

In what has now become a trilogy of posts , I'm here again to write about the RSPCA Badly Drawn Pets fundraiser because last night it was my turn to get sketchy. The fundraiser has done really well, sailing past its 3K target, but that has meant there is a backlog of pets to be badly drawn and the pool of 'artists' has had to be extended. I am now within that pool, bathing in the inks and paints. Well, its more like colouring pencils and felt tips, but you get what I mean. My subject was a black rabbit called Inara (Hittite goddess of wild animals - cool name!) who stands proudly in her picture sticking her ridiculous cartoonish tongue out. I've not posted the full drawing here because I thought it better for the owner-donators to see it first, but this detail shows the aforementioned tongue. It was a fun exercise, taking me back to those heady days of GSCE art where I would gamely reproduce various Still Lives and be awarded Cs for attainment and Bs for effort. But I...

Yesterday, I finished the video game Ori and the Blind Forest on the Switch, escaping (after many attempts) the wrath of Kuro the Owl, the game’s main antagonist. She is a velvet-dark mega-bird of hatred and revenge who spends the whole game trying to vanquish Ori, the little light spirit you play as. She’s actually pretty terrifying; looming in the background, screeching and keening somewhere off-frame, and if your clumsy human thumbs don’t quite hit the right buttons at the right times and in the right directions, she doesn’t hesitate to cut down Ori in quick-flash swipes of pure terror. Meanwhile, the rest of the game is similarly staffed with nasty creatures, ranging from amorphous slug-like blobs and chittering spiders, to armored rhinos and weird frogs who spit balls of pain. It is the most human-like creatures who are the heroes of the day, while the animals are suffused with unbridled fury.  Which is not to say I did not enjoy the game - I did, very muchly. It was more cha...

Now I know we covered guinea pigs yesterday, but this latest encounter was too good to pass over. Hannah has received her own entry to the Badly Drawn Pets fundraiser , which I mentioned in blogpost one a few days ago .* Hannah sent in a picture of a trio of our guinea pigs; Crystal, Debpig, and Homer, and has received back this delightful effort. Marvel at the Demon Debpig from Valhalla, and Homer’s weirdly distended cheek. One’s eyes are drawn to the hypnotising smiles of each subject, like a triptych of mammal Mona Lisas, and we might ask; what thoughts are passing through those fuzzy heads? Benevolence or malevolence? Amusement at the folly of art, or the hint of anticipation towards the eventual sating of lettuce-based hunger?  The artist is, at present, anonymous. All we know is that it was produced by a staff or volunteer at the Manchester & Salford RSPCA and that Hannah deliberately asked for, and I quote, ‘someone who can’t draw’. Such an assessment is unfair, I feel. ...