under another sun

Evening in the study Monday and back to the unglamourous business of sorting my business out. I am redefining what it is I actually do and offer the agencies I work with. It seems prudent to focus on what will continue to put bread on the table. Working late tonight and I - finally - noticed the blindingly obvious, which was a relief. In the afternoon I met Dipak in the Marwood for a coffee. I also made time to watch a documentary about Lucien Freud. I have been well aware of his work for decades, I knew little about the back story other than he was the grandson of Sigmund Freud. He was from a Jewish family who were able to leave Germany early in the Nazi period. I think I see the influence of Neue Sachlichkeit art in his work, which wasn't mentioned. Lorraine home late having watched a play Beth was in up in Kingston. Apparently Beth was rather splendid in it, and complimented by one of her sternest tutors afterwards. And so to bed. Looked at facebook to see that Max has (at last...

The Maimed Up early to get on with some French work, working out how to Anglicise a campaign which was full of French puns, jeu de mot and references into English. Something of an impossible task, but sent my best effort for this off at midday. Knee a bit on the puffy side and am hobbly, but enjoyed myself in the gym for half an hour or so. Afternoon and evening spent looking blankly at poems, flying over the Channel in a ME 109, and reading The Maimed by Hermann Ungar. Published in 1923. It is as others have pointed out a perfect companion to Die neue Sachlichkeit painters such as Otto Dix and George Grosz. An exhibition of Neue Sachlichkeit I saw in my teens made a lasting impression on me then. The Maimed is repulsively gripping. A post first world war society and its hero Pultz subject to an obsessive compulsive behaviour, an abused childhood, poverty, a fear of women and children, a sexual revulsion, and a cast of other characters who as physically and emotionally crippled. B...