tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post809636519047255133..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Tyson: Savage GodUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36012880643100334832010-02-15T11:29:27.307-08:002010-02-15T11:29:27.307-08:00Thankyou Tom.
And regarding 'Combinations'...Thankyou Tom.<br /><br />And regarding 'Combinations'... yes, that sense of the word was high on my list. Poetically explosive. Thanks again..https://www.blogger.com/profile/00532376301529981186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57685570657351243982010-02-14T06:03:08.901-08:002010-02-14T06:03:08.901-08:00Leigh,
Thank you. The drawings are remarkable. Th...Leigh,<br /><br />Thank you. The drawings are remarkable. The power and flow of an articulate energy, contained, released.<br /><br />Here is the direct link, for those who'd like to look:<br /><br /><a href="http://leightuplin.blogspot.com/2010/02/drawings-from-combination-to-being.html" rel="nofollow">Drawings: 'From Combination to Being...'(After, 'Tyson, Savage God')</a><br /><br />(I take it that in the various senses of 'combinations' you may mean to include a figure of that lightning-quick right to the body/right hook to the head 'combination' which was the lethal signature of Tyson's warrior art, inculcated by his teacher Cus D'Amato, in his early days?)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48482420914929984472010-02-13T06:03:50.720-08:002010-02-13T06:03:50.720-08:00Tom, last night i finished four small drawings ins...Tom, last night i finished four small drawings inspired by this post. They're more instinctive rather than intelligent, which is me. I've linked them to here. Hope that's ok..https://www.blogger.com/profile/00532376301529981186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73630648733986960012010-02-12T23:48:25.725-08:002010-02-12T23:48:25.725-08:00Leigh,
No, I did understand, I think, and was mer...Leigh,<br /><br />No, I did understand, I think, and was merely having a laugh (at myself).<br /><br />I do indeed see the relation you suggest, in terms of those two exacting disciplines of the moment. <br /><br />Tension and fear and the beckoning possibility of a release into clarity are always so near and so intimately related as one steps into the ring of the page or the canvas.<br /><br />The Aztec warrior disciplines, in my small comprehension of them, came very close to being a central metaphor for all this, as in those games the price of failure in the moment seems to have been death in the next moment.<br /><br />And this brings us back to what I found in the Tyson film, for I gathered from it that for MT the initial discovery of the warrior discipline was literally also a discovery of a way to survive. As he makes clear in the film, there was a channeling of anger. And his comments on the Holyfield fight make it clear that when the anger overcame the discipline, insanity ensued; and after that turning point, there was never again to be a return to the clarity of the discipline.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84660091839627128592010-02-12T08:28:42.020-08:002010-02-12T08:28:42.020-08:00Tom,
Once again I didn't explain myself very ...Tom,<br /><br />Once again I didn't explain myself very well I fear (I'm guilty of that way too often) - <br /><br />I couldn't stand up and defend boxing or any similar sport to anyone who wanted to ban it or control it further, since it is basically two people desperately trying to harm one another, albeit in a skilfull way, yet, even though I didn't box alot, in the queensberry sense, I did practise Muay Thai for many years and too a lesser extent Taekwondo. The feeling of being in the ring was very seductive. I loved it. It's a cliche, but that, and being lost in the middle of a painting, are probably two of the experiences I associate most with feeling truly alive. Standing there facing an opponent before the bout has begun: the gut bursting with adrenaline and fear, for me was unique and quite addictive. <br /><br />Apologies for not explaining myself well..https://www.blogger.com/profile/00532376301529981186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-15683509919635122912010-02-12T07:57:17.383-08:002010-02-12T07:57:17.383-08:00Leigh,
In my (enforced) boxing days, I too had tr...Leigh,<br /><br />In my (enforced) boxing days, I too had trouble defending myself.<br /><br />(Once had a religious medal implanted into my chest in the course of a particularly unsuccessful defense.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40289827322093886082010-02-12T05:15:17.522-08:002010-02-12T05:15:17.522-08:00Thanks so much for this Tom.. There is something s...Thanks so much for this Tom.. There is something so very seductive about the art of boxing..My head can never defend the act itself, but my gut understands..https://www.blogger.com/profile/00532376301529981186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-80400104952865535742010-02-11T08:10:01.592-08:002010-02-11T08:10:01.592-08:00Thanks Otto,
Good to feel others are feeling this...Thanks Otto,<br /><br />Good to feel others are feeling this.<br /><br />The film swirled back into my mind (as soon as it started working again) after the brief synaptic storm of adrenalin triggered by the events described <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/starlight-and-shadow.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-79525426133077606082010-02-09T21:56:11.249-08:002010-02-09T21:56:11.249-08:00Fantastic documentary about someone who I think is...Fantastic documentary about someone who I think is a fantastic representation of the country that created him.~otto~https://www.blogger.com/profile/08859835662556335529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-78088263407138282312010-02-08T23:47:25.163-08:002010-02-08T23:47:25.163-08:00Thanks O for picking up on the film and for saying...Thanks O for picking up on the film and for saying these true things.<br /><br />Indeed, "a mirror to the large terribleness of living here".<br /><br />Reality. Who wants to look? <br /><br />We thought this movie blew all the tissue-thin and skin-deep '09 best picture nominee films right off the dark map of the present moment. An actual work of art, yet.<br /><br />(By the way it seems certain tastes remain common, you'll have noted MT has probably watched all those same old fights you have, at least 1000 times each.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83372013575624410202010-02-08T18:07:07.446-08:002010-02-08T18:07:07.446-08:00Saw the documentary after reading your post--boxin...Saw the documentary after reading your post--boxing's an international sport, but as metaphor it seem so American--class, and race issues, but also that feeling that violence is around every corner. Sometimes I'm embarrassed that I'm so drawn to it--spend too much time watching old fights on youtube--but it (and Tyson's life) holds a mirror to the large terribleness of living here. <br /><br /><br />"The name of the game is be hit and hit back"<br />- Warren Zevon, from Boom Boom Mancinipoetowenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11278368064478791137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-50240493890165171802010-02-07T17:51:25.407-08:002010-02-07T17:51:25.407-08:00William Carlos Williams, "To Elsie"
fro...William Carlos Williams, "To Elsie" <br />from "Spring and all" (1923):<br /><br /><br /> The pure products of America<br /> go crazy--<br /> mountain folk from Kentucky<br /><br /> or the ribbed north end of<br /> Jersey<br /> with its isolate lakes and<br /><br /> valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves<br /> old names<br /> and promiscuity between<br /><br /> devil-may-care men who have taken<br /> to railroading<br /> out of sheer lust of adventure--<br /><br /> and young slatterns, bathed<br /> in filth<br /> from Monday to Saturday<br /><br /> to be tricked out that night<br /> with gauds<br /> from imaginations which have no<br /><br /> peasant traditions to give them<br /> character<br /> but flutter and flaunt<br /><br /> sheer rags succumbing without<br /> emotion<br /> save numbed terror<br /><br /> under some hedge of choke-cherry<br /> or viburnum--<br /> which they cannot express--<br /><br /> Unless it be that marriage<br /> perhaps<br /> with a dash of Indian blood<br /><br /> will throw up a girl so desolate<br /> so hemmed round<br /> with disease or murder<br /><br /> that she'll be rescued by an<br /> agent--<br /> reared by the state and<br /><br /> sent out at fifteen to work in<br /> some hard-pressed<br /> house in the suburbs--<br /><br /> some doctor's family, some Elsie<br /> voluptuous water<br /> expressing with broken<br /><br /> brain the truth about us--<br /> her great<br /> ungainly hips and flopping breasts<br /><br /> addressed to cheap<br /> jewelry<br /> and rich young men with fine eyes<br /><br /> as if the earth under our feet<br /> were<br /> an excrement of some sky<br /><br /> and we degraded prisoners<br /> destined<br /> to hunger until we eat filth<br /><br /> while the imagination strains<br /> after deer<br /> going by fields of goldenrod in<br /><br /> the stifling heat of September<br /> somehow<br /> it seems to destroy us<br /><br /> It is only in isolate flecks that<br /> something<br /> is given off<br /><br /> No one<br /> to witness<br /> and adjust, no one to drive the car<br /><br /><br /> ____<br /><br /><br />On the biting of Holyfield's ear: video footage in "Tyson" confirms Tyson's contention that in their second fight, as earlier in the first, Holyfield had been head-butting him. This, says Tyson, injured and disoriented him in both fights.<br /><br />The bloody climacteric of the second fight is raw primal carnage.<br /><br />"I'm a good person but at that moment I went insane," says Tyson in the film. "I wanted to inflict as much pain as possible on that man. I was totally insane at that moment... I lost my cool, I lost my composure, I lost my discipline. It's the worst thing a warrior can ever do."<br /><br />He says that the fight was a turning point for him. "I lost my desire in being champion, I didn't really care about it anymore."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36698648843080137302010-02-07T13:17:37.188-08:002010-02-07T13:17:37.188-08:00I can't remember who said it, but
it's thi...I can't remember who said it, but<br />it's this:<br />"The pure products of America go<br /> crazy"<br /><br />There was the biting of Hollyfield's ear.Elmo St. Rosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43301114509665249962010-02-06T18:44:23.586-08:002010-02-06T18:44:23.586-08:00God savages Tyson
he goes down in multiple rounds
...God savages Tyson<br />he goes down in multiple rounds<br />but is always up before being<br />counted out.<br /><br />They both know the final bell.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38139226138002520932010-02-06T18:09:30.614-08:002010-02-06T18:09:30.614-08:00Yes, you're right, Cy. But Tyson also says in...Yes, you're right, Cy. But Tyson also says in the film, among other things, that he met "the president of Istanbul". This is Mike Tyson.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65042695269204051792010-02-06T18:07:29.301-08:002010-02-06T18:07:29.301-08:00Steve,
Yes, "experience... itself".
An...Steve,<br /><br />Yes, "experience... itself".<br /><br />And in MT's case, experience we will never fathom.<br /><br />(The film itself is a visceral experience of great power.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20696814505880327322010-02-06T16:14:19.233-08:002010-02-06T16:14:19.233-08:00I have to point out, as a New Zealander, that Tyso...I have to point out, as a New Zealander, that Tyson's take on the role of facial tattoos in Maori culture leaves a lot to be desired - and "Maori" doesn't designate a tribe, its a collective term for the many distinct tribes that occupy different areas of Aotearoa/New Zealand.Cy Mathewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03244437975709553222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-30880871784448682342010-02-06T08:03:54.198-08:002010-02-06T08:03:54.198-08:00Tom, very moving 'look' at Tyson (words an...Tom, very moving 'look' at Tyson (words and pictures) "experience . . . itself" ---<br /><br />2.6<br /><br />grey light in clouds against still black<br />ridge, red-tailed hawk calling on branch<br />in foreground, sound of waves in channel<br /><br /> pen over graphite, on paper<br /> lower and upper right<br /><br /> here and there, experienced<br /> prior to that, itself<br /><br />blue-white sky on horizon next to point,<br />whiteness of gull perched on GROIN signSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com