The Allman Brothers Band

The other day I saw a poster in the Paris metro advertising a coming concert by Greg Allman. 40 years on! Hard to believe sometimes how time goes by. Here is a recent picture of Greg Allman. Remember the Allman Brothers band?

They were one of the great blues-rock bands of the 1970's (I suppose my favourite one at the time, at least of the US bands) with all those sometimes over-long guitar solos. Duane, who was in fact an excellent and stylish guitarist, was killed in a bike smash in 1971 (no, I am not waxing romantic about bike accidents, in fact I hate them: they are messy and painful, but shit happens).

On left, Greg Allman and Cher back in the 70's




So Greg Allman is back on the road. Be quite interested to hear what he does these days musically. I remember a good singer.










Now here is your little present, which is a nicely done animation by Brett Underhill using different cuts of one of the band's best songs, Blind Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues. The sound jumps a bit because he has put together bits from different tracks and concerts. The composition of the band changed over the years, and this is reflected in the images too. It finishes with a nice little acoustic solo by Duane. Like this a lot. Looking forward to hearing some more.



Ok, the Allman Brothers Band.... from Brett Underhill on Vimeo.

Girls on motorcycles 2

No, this is not going to be about lightly-clothed models draped over bikes in bike shows or in garages. Although they may be very decorative, I doubt whether these ladies actually ride bikes. Some time ago I wrote a piece on this blog about ladies who really do (or have done in some cases) ride motorcycles in earnest. 

http://morethanjustwine.blogspot.com/2010/11/girls-on-motorcycles.html

I said at the time that I would return to this subject, and I have found some more evidence, starting with this picture from 1907. Not sure that this lady rode very far dressed like this though...

Harleys seem to have been popular with ladies even back in the 1920's. This lady is dressed for the part, although I am not sure that I would have wanted to ride pillion behind her on that thing that looks like an old Brooks bicycle seat.

And, while we are on the subject of Harleys, this one, from the 1940's by the look of it, looks like she meant business.

Harleys were also into the Wild West folklore element, like here. Cute in a way, and nice bike too (I suppose a 1950's Knucklehead, although I am far from an expert in matters Harley)

There is something rather more serious about the German lady biker...

Then we move to contemporary pictures, and how about this lady? Her name is Leslie Porterfield, she has a motorcycle shop in Dallas, and she is known as the Queen of Speed.

And she really does it too, like here at Bonneville on what looks to be the same machine. She was the fastest lady on 2 wheels in 2008 with this run.

And of course there are many more of them, which is good news as we will definitely come back to this subject in some form or another.

Meanwhile, ride well, and safely, and enjoy the ride...

Wine(s) of the week, from the upper Loire

I realise that have lapsed in feeding this column over the past few weeks, but here we go with a whole range of wines from a small estate/winery in a tiny and little-known region of France. It goes without saying that I find these wines not just unusual, but good and of excellent value for money. Their retail prices (if you can find them) should vary between about 5 and 10 euros (in France), depending on the wine. Their range is bewilderingly large, which is one criticism that I would dare to make to this enterprising and sympathetic young couple whom I met for the second time at this year's Loire Wine Fair back in February. And the labels, as you can see, are refreshingly creative.

The Côtes Roannaise appellation vineyards lie at the southern extremity of the very long (for France) River Loire: in fact close to its source. Bordering on the Massif Central highlands they are far from extensive (just over 200 hectares, or almost 500 acres) and the estates are accordingly of a small scale. The altitude is clearly a significant climate factor here, as the vines lie at between 400 and 500 metres above sea-level. Thus the vine plots are only planted on southerly facing slopes, to maximise sunshine. As in nearby Beaujolais, the soil type is basically granite. Again as in the much larger and more famous neighbour, the red grape used is Gamay. White vines, mostly planted on plots with a higher clay content, use the Chardonnay grape.

Although essentially a wine producer from its 10 hectares of vines (25 acres), the Domaine des Pothiers also raises Limousin cows on their less well-exposed land.

I really like these wines for their crisp definition, clear-as-a-bell fruit flavours, and delicious lightness. And the least expensive products are often just as good as the higher-priced ones. The former are usually made in tanks, whilst the latter tend to undergo some maturing in oak barrels. All are keenly priced though.

My favourites, from my recent tasting, are these: Chardonnay, Vertige, Référence, Cuvée no:6, and Domaine. But I do hope they stop producing new cuvées, and even start reducing the number!

Take a look at their well made web site (unfortunately only in French) to get more of an idea...
http://www.domainedespothiers.com/

You will notice that they also have a gite on site for rental. Good place to base yourself for a trip to this region.

My twelfth bike was a Ducati Multistrada 1000DS

As was the case between my first Norton Commando (the 750 Fastback) and the Moto Guzzi La Mans Mk1, there was a bit of a gap between the time I sold (with bitter regrets, but I have since manage to assuage them by buying back the same machine) my Norton Commando 850 MkII and the next machine I owned: this grey Ducati Multistrada 1000. I bought this bike new in the summer of 2002, if I remember correctly.

I have always been keen to run a Ducati but, to be honest, was not that eager to have the small of my back and my wrists tortured during the long rides that I planned and enjoy. Hence exit, at least for the time being, dreams of the fabulous but uncompromising sports bikes for which Ducati is rightly famed. Years ago when working part-time as a tester/photographer for Bike magazine in the UK I had ridden, in and around the factory, a 750SS prototype. I just loved the sound and feel of it, whilst hating the belting it gave my body on everyday roads. This must have been in about 1972/73. Much later on (30 years, how time flies!), when the firm from Bologna brought out the Multistrada, and depite is somewhat ungainly looks (although it has its good angles), I instantly felt that this would be the ideal combination for a now slightly older biker who still likes his ride to go fast, brake and corner well, and yet not turn him into a basket case at the end of each trip of above 100 miles. The Multistrada offered me the mechanics of a sports bike with adjustable and confortable supension and a sensible riding position for road use.

Having run it in quite carefully, I found not much to criticise in the bike. It went quite fast enough for my limited capacities on normal roads, although it did tend to thump and protest a bit below 3000 rpm. The acceleration had plenty of "grunt" and the bike held a line well, although it was not that keen on uneven surfaces when leant over a bit. The braking was spectacular (well, what modern bike wouldn't be compared to the Commando I had previously owned, but I did also have the benchmark braking of the Guzzi Le Mans embedded in the seat of my pants!). Luckily I tend to brake mainly with the front item as the back brake is not that great. The worst thing about it for my use was the seat: hard as nails and very uncomfortable. I changed it fast for a comfort model (rider and passenger) sold by Ducati and very good. I also changed the screen for a marginally higher one with a slight reverse curve at the top edge which made a lot of difference when cruising on motorways (not that I do much of that). And I fitted removable paniers for those longer trips. One thing I never managed to sort was the silly petrol guage which goes onto reserve more than 100 kms before you run out of petrol. I just got used to that and started counting when the warning light comes on!

The above picture shows me on the grey MS with paniers chasing a red one during the first day of the 2005 Centopassi rally in 2005. At the end of the first day we were based in one place so the paniers stayed behind in the hotel.

The MS is a perfect bike for these mountain roads. The Centopassi rally spends three days in a mountainous part of Europe. I have since joined the European Multistrada Club to do similar things in a more relaxed atmosphere, as the Centopassi was polluted for me by a few young Italians on Japanese superbikes taking themselves for V. Rossi. This is fine on a track, but stupid and inconsiderate on open roads. 

This, my first long-term experience with a Ducati (apart from the spin on the 750SS, I did borrow a 450 single from a friend once, but I had problems starting the thing: it probably needed the timing adjusted or something), was to lead to another, as you will soon discover.

Ride on...

The charioteer of Delphi, in Greece

I visited the site of Delphi a few years ago. Apart from the impressive scale and beauty of this site, a single object has stuck in my mind ever since as one of the most beautiful pieces of sculpture I have ever seen. Delphi is a well-documented site and you can find much about it on the usual sources such as Wikipedia.

I am talking about the work known as the Charioteer of Delphi, also known as Heniokhos (the rein-holder), which can be seen in the museum at the foot of the archaeological site. It was found in 1896, in amazingly good condition, on the site of the temple of Apollo. Originally part of a much larger work that included the chariot and horses, it is said to be the most complete of ancient bronze sculptures.

Parts of the original base of this statue and the legs of one of the horses have also survived. The base shows an inscription indicating that the statue was commissioned by Polyzalus, a ruler of Gela, a Greek colony in Sicily, as tribute to Apollo for helping him win the chariot race during the Pythian games which were held every four years at Delphi. The hippodrome and stadium are still visible. The statue was erected at Delphi in 474 BC.

I have yet to find a photograph (and I regret not having taken one myself) that truly shows the subtleties of this sculptural figure of the charioteer. Somehow, most photographs of sculptures seem to totally miss the subtle dynamics that makes some sculptures come almost alive. In this case, I think it all starts with the feet....

Above is a plaster-cast of the feet of the charioteer, held, I believe, in the Louvre in Paris. It cannot give you the whole idea of what I am attempting to convey, but, if you look at the heel of the foot on the left (your left that is), you will notice that it is clearly carrying less weight than the other foot. And when you see the sculpture and move around it, that right hand heel (the charioteer's right) appears to lift ever so slightly off the ground, poising the weight of his body towards his toes. And the body has that slight twist that turns his head, his torso and his hands ever so slightly to the right, guiding the horses.  

I have looked at hundreds of photographs of this scupture and have yet to find a single one that shows the detail that, to me at any rate, makes it really work: the lightening of the body's weight from one heel. The feet, which are beautifully sculpted, are shown here, but they are seen from the front, which partially misses the point, although you can sense the man's left-foot toes just lifting off the ground, balancing him against the raising of the heel of the other foot (which is not shown on this pictire).

There are also fine detail shots of the right arm and the hand holding the reins, or of the drapes of his garment, all of which of course participate in the beauty of this work.

But I can find no image to show the sublety of what links him to the soil (in fact the platform of the moving chariot), all of which stems from the back of his feet that give the impulsion to balance and set in movement what otherwise could appear to be quite a rigid stance on the part of the charioteer.

I cannot think that I am the only one to have noticed this. Anyone got a picture out there?

Light and shade in Lyon 2

A follow-up to yesterday's post of photographs that I took in Lyon.

all photographs by David Cobbold

Light and shade in Lyon 1

I recently published an article on the pleasures of visiting the city of Lyon

http://morethanjustwine.blogspot.com/2011/02/lyon-for-weekend.html

The weather on the two days that I was there was cold, but cristal-clear, producing the kind of light that engendered these photographs and the feelings that go with them...

There is more to come, but I wish it was easier to put pages of photographs together on this particular blog format!

Photography and its effect on painting

The invention of photography, in the middle of the 19th century, caused many painters to consider that this signed the end of their art. When he saw the first daguerrotype, the French painter Paul Delaroche said this: "As from today, painting is dead!" Painters whose work consisted of the production of life-like images to satisfy, generally, the egos of their customers, could see that photography was a far more efficient and inexpensive way of achieving this. Another commentator of this period had this to say: "Photography is so rigourously true to optical reality that it is likely to destroy individual conceptions of beauty."

This last remark was proved to be very wrong, as was soon shown by the work of the impressionists who went inside immediate, superficial vision to invistigate how images, and particularly colours and shapes, are perceived by the eye and the brain. And many art movements since then have taken this much further. As for aesthetics, or perceived beauty, we have since seen just how much this lies in the eye of the beholder (or, to be more cynical and in respect to some contemporary art, in the pocket of the investor), and how impossible it is to set hard-and-fast criteriae for beauty.

Lucien Freud, self-portrait (left)


It is perhaps pertinent here to remember what the contemporary painter Lucien Freud said about this question of the links between painting and perceived "reality" (my underlining in the text).

 "My object in painting pictures is to try and move the senses by giving an intensification of reality. Whether this can be achieved depends on how intensely the painter understands and feels for the person or object of his choice."



To see more of Freud's work, you can take a look here:

http://morethanjustwine.blogspot.com/2011/01/lucien-freud-and-painting.html

The "true-to-life" realism of photographic images was also critcised from the start precisely because it was too realistic. This precise reproduction of what people really saw in the world around them kind of blew apart the hypocrisy of constructed, often idealised images of what people wanted to see, as in this nineteenth century painting by Bochereau. And of course the same can often been said about portraits prior to photography, with many very notable exceptions of course.

What is very clear is that photography not only opened up new fields for painting to explore by removing the onus for slavishly realistic reproduction, but, especially with the arrival of moving photography (films, of you prefer), it also profoundly modified our very way of looking at things. Vision has never been the same since. The impressionists, like Monet, could do things like this: 

What Monet showed was that vision was a continuum that ebbed and flowed, and not a fixed snapshot. One could attempt to catch an instant of it, but that would merely provide an "impression", bacause capturing reality is an illusion. Reality is there, whether we look at it or not. All we can do is to create our impression of it and of its impact on our senses and emotions, as Lucien Freud said.

A little later, the cubists would de-construct the traditional single viewpoint to encompass many perspectives in a single painting, something later investigated, perhaps with more finesse and in another way by the English painter David Hockney. He used Polaroid images of the same subject taken from different viewpoints that were minute variations on a theme, just as one's two eyes, combined with the movements of the head, will produce small differences in the vision of a subject. Of course the brain usually irons these kinetic or stereoscopic differences out, but Hockney here shows how they can constitute a still-frame version of our habitual "movie" vision.

So is art concerned with the imitation of "real" life?

Certainly not since photography became widespread, and pretending that it should be seems to me rather like pretending that the discipline of history should consist of relating a string of known historical events. Bonnard had this to say on the subject in the early part of the 20th century: "The question is not the painting of life, but making painting come alive."

Art has to do with human imagination, and the juxtaposition of elements that may or may not be perceived directly in visual reality. The act of painting imposes choices on the painter, and these choices will constantly be confronted with the constraints of executing these decisions. This is no different from almost any form of human action. Gerhard Richter, the contemporary German painter, said this: "My paintings have no particular purpose; but, like all objects, they are their own purpose. Therefore they have no content, no signification and no meaning; they are like any other object, trees, animals, humans or the days which have no particular purpose either, no goal or reason for being there. That is the whole point. Yet there are such things as good or bad paintings!"

 

Have a smoke?

I must confess to taking this beautiful photograph from the excellent Spanish blog, 8negro.

Sometimes you get lazy, and there were quite a few rugby games to watch today. The blog in question has a series there called "smoke girls". And a lot of other good looking stuff. The link is on this page somewhere in the margin. Take a look. Bikes are another strong feature.

Carré des Feuillants, Paris

The inside courtyard that leads to the Carré des Feuillants restaurant

I am not a restaurant critic. I lack the knowledge and that hidden spark of motivation that provides an extra layer of energy so necessary to any profession, and which separates the plodders from those who do their job with love and enthusiasm, at least most of the time. I really am not a out-and-out "foodie". I enjoy tastes and textures, and all kinds of them, as varied as possible, including very simple ones. I take care with what I eat and prefer not to eat at all than eat rubbish (apart from plain survival, naturally). Yet I choose a restaurant above and beyond all for the atmosphere it contains, and for the people who run it. Going to a restaurant is to me a bit like going to someone's house. If I do not feel welcome, or at ease, then I will either leave or not go back there. Neither am I a great fan of long and formal meals. Therefore I will never wait for months for a booking to go to THAT particular restaurant, nor will I stand in line in everyday places. I would rather go elsewhere, try something else, and anyway avoid the crowds.  So you may well ask why on earth am I writing about a 2-star Michelin restaurant that is, to me, one of Paris' best, although I have not tried them all by a long chalk.

The answer is that, first and foremost, I like and greatly respect the chef behind this place, Alain Dutournier. Of course the quality of his food is quite extraordinary, generously full of flavours and those textural contrasts that are so much a part of fine cuisine. The style is modern, yet with a direct and constant link to the natural characteristics of the well-chosen ingredients he uses. Dutournier is a craftsman in the noble sense of the term. He is rarely absent from his restaurant, and, throughout his now long career, he has always sought to improve and create, whilst never denying his origins in the Landes region of South-West France. He is also a thoughtful, soft-spoken and generous man, the very anthithesis of certain super-star chefs whose heads are so swollen that they may need hats to keep them on.

The entrance area, somewhere between Armagnac and Japan

I was prompted to write this piece by a recent meal taken at the Carré des Feuillants, his restaurant near the Place Vendome that you have to seek out at the back of an internal courtyard, under the arches that line the Rue Castiglione (a touch of discretion that resembles the man himself). There was something special and unusual about this lunch, as it had been prompted by a grandson who has recently declared, aged all of 11, that his ambition is to become a chef. We all know that childhood urges often deviate from their initial path. I seem to remember that I wanted to go into the army when I was his age!  But this boy also said that what he most wanted for a Christamas present was to eat in a really good restaurant. So I decided to take him to one, and I chose Alain Dutournier's not only because I very much like the place, but I also knew that I felt up to asking the chef if he would take the boy into his kitchen and show him around. And this worked out beyond my expectations. We both left with stars in our eyes. Me on account of the fabulous succession of dishes that flowed from the "menu dégustation" that the chef prepared for us, plus the wines that he served me. I should add that Alain Dutournier is a chef, perhaps one of the rare ones, who truly loves his wine and knows more about the subject than most specialists. Paul, my grandson, was probably groggy from so much (magnificent) food, but he also had (time only will tell) received a vision of the heights to which food, and all that surrounds it, can be raised.We both just floated out of there on our clouds and clambered back down to the below-ground realities of the Paris metro.   

The Carré des Feuillants restaurant is as fine as anything that I would ever want in this department. It also has one of the world's best wine lists. If you come to Paris and like the best food and wine, served with ease  and grace in a natural, unforced way, this is the place that I would recommend. Who needs three stars anyway? We had, as I said, stars in our eyes, and they were from pure joy, not from any razzmatazz (the French would say blingbling nowadays).

www.carredesfeuillants.fr/