WOEBOT

Glad to be "Gay"

My friend's Michel Magne record sleeve reminded me of Gerard Hoffnung. Hoffnung is a strange beast. He's an example of that unholy creature, a parasite on a different mode of expression. In this way he's rather like the music journalist, well of course he IS a kind of music journalist. This type of parasite never gets the respect that the practitioner themself gets, and what he produces is always seen as a charming but inferior "art." Like we care! There's always been a strong strain of music fetishism (and the collector's pathology) in comics, one only has to look at the Crumb/Zwigoff axis for evidence.

I went to a Hoffnung concert in Edinburgh once (aged 14) and it was brilliant; like his drawings the perfect antidote to classical music's stuffiness. The performance I remember most clearly featured a singer on stage who was repeatedly interrupted by someone in the audience coughing (if memory serves). The soloist went from frustration, to consoling the woman (a plant, which *REALLY* shocked and delighted me at the time), offering her a glass of water, to striking up an amorous duet with her. Well it's just pure Cagean/Kagellian buffonery innit!

Hoffnung's drawings have that charming (usually infuriating) quality of classical music culture, that of delicacy and piety. One word sums up the mood of his work to my mind, "gay." And I mean here, "gay" in it's old usage. It's a shame people aren't "gay" anymore. They're either rushing on joy or smugly content. I like "gay" people. I like gay people too!

Liquidamente 1956

His Master's Voice 1953

Bass Flute 1955

The Flute and the Piccolo Flute 1955

Tenor 1956

Posted by Woebot at January 7, 2004 04:54 PM