paradox

Surprising myself, I found a new hobby. In recent weeks I’ve taken up painting with acrylics. I can’t draw, so all my efforts are geometrical abstractions. For example, one I’ve just finished is my Grande Opus IV.

The term “Grande Opus” by the way is a portmanteau phrase. I think I’ve invented it because I can’t imagine anyone else combining French and Latin in such a blatantly disrespectful manner. But the alternative term “magnum opus” suggests that greatness is in some way involved and that would be risible when applied to me or any of my exasperated liberal arts.

Yesterday I painted. The Maestros stayed the night before, inevitably encouraging the imbibing of excessive quantities of wine and I was feeling jeune-eyed as we waved them off along Victoria Street in the morning. To recover, I decided to spend a relaxing day waving desultory bristles at a canvas.

My Grande Opus IV is entitled “Infinity.” Throughout the day I worked assiduously on the schematic. The principle of “Infinity” is that I divided the canvas into two halves, painting one half in a single colour and then dividing the other half into two equal portions again. One half of that is painted in a single but different colour and the remainder is then again divided into half… and so on. Thus the picture can never be finished. Repeatedly halving the remainder takes us into infinity. It’s a funny feeling, infinity. In a way it’s like being crapulent.

The problem with my “Infinity” is that I entered a microscopic world. At the last, I was using extra strong reading spectacles augmented by a magnifying glass to allow me to see where the paint was bound. This was now micro-painting, the nanophase of my Grande Opus IV, quantum art. Finally, the image disappeared up its own rectum in the middle of the canvas; I could physically divide the squares no more. They are too small for my fading eyesight and quaking hands. So I declared the painting to be finished apart from where I’ve daubed blue acrylic on yellow during a moment of tremor. I’ll repair that later. Come to think of it, that’s an end to infinity. A paradox - I’ll have to consider the philosophical implications over a glass of Montana.

Then I had another surprise. If my painting is a fair depiction of reality, with each sector representing one year, I’ve discovered that infinity is four years, perhaps five if I am generous to myself and assume the splodgy anal pinprick at the centre is somehow symbolic of one more. I’m not quite sure how that correlates with the Biblical conceit of eternity, or the scientific concept of infinite space. Even Aesop would be surprised to discover that infinity is only 5 years. And I thought I’d manage at least ten.

While I was struggling through my moments of artistic epiphany, I listened to Charles Mingus, or more precisely Danny Richmond, his long-suffering drummer. When I listen to jazz, I’m forced by nature to tap my feet. It’s something in my DNA I think. Dad was the same with Bill Hailey. With most drummers, I keep time reasonably well. Danny Richmond tips me all over the place; I constantly have to adjust the pattern of my taps, sometimes needing to stop, listen and pick up the beat at a later point.

In my Polyhymnian naivety, I’ve always considered Danny Richmond to be a bit of a rubbish drummer. But I knew that I had to be wrong, because Mingus never suffered fools at all. He wanted perfection and he demanded it from his colleagues or he sacked them. And Richmond lasted as the Mingus drummer for over twenty years. I’ve often puzzled this apparent contradiction.

The second epiphany of the day came – Mingus (the leader of the band) was constantly changing tempo. Someone a little less adoring and more cynical might suggest he was erratic. But in most of the tracks he repeatedly and deliberately changed rhythms and beats and tempi, challenging his sidemen to keep up. And good old Danny did, matching his maestro to the nano-second of shifting beat. He worked his percussion with unerring precision, riding the tumult in total synchronisation with the bass man. Mingus & Richmond; Richmond & Mingus – they should be linked by ampersands so well are they musically matched.

So Danny Richmond was not a crap drummer. He was a bloody genius. Why hadn’t I realised this before? I’ve been listening to Mingus for over 50 years. Where has my brain been all that time? I want to make amends so I’m going to dedicate Grande Opus VII to the pair. But that’s in the future. I’m now making a start on Grande Opus V. I’m feeling in a Sonny Rollins mood. “Paradox” I think, a 1955 recording with Max Roach on drums. He keeps good time with my toes.