HAND OVER FIST PRESS
SHEEP
IN THE ROAD
23
in a rich man’s world Ah-ha, money schmoney baloney
it is priceless, that you fuckers
can’t take it with you
d
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 23
The
CONTENTS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
again, lot of odds in this issue, but have a look!
Edit & Design: Alan Rutherford Published online by www.handoverfistpress.com Cover: Constuctivists: Rodchenko and Stepanova Frontispiece: Hans Holbien
Photograph of Benn at Thoemmes Press: Alan Rutherford
Photographs, words and artwork sourced from ‘found in the scrapbook of life’, no intentional copyright infringement intended, credited whenever possible, so, for treading on any toes ... apologies all round! There is no deadline for submitting articles to be included in the next issue, it will appear whenever, or in your dreams!
Opening 03 Brown eyes
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Castle Cabs
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Feat of Clay
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Kathe Kollwitz
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Peter Mitchell
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Letters 47
Articles to: alanrutherford1@mac.com
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... the main poin again: war is pe freedom is slave ignorance is stre – and that was news, goodnigh
nts eace, ery, ength the ht
OPENING Blah-blahblah-blahblah––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
There is no reason for the end to justify the means as long as there is something worthwhile to be justified in the end
Hello, Welcome to magazine number 23. Ignoring the media circus, lies and bullshit that parades as news ... mis-directing our attention, here is a magazine produced freely to be read freely.
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All articles and artwork supplied, or found in newspapers lining the bottom of the canary cage, were gratefully received and developed with love, enthusiasm and sympathy here at Hand Over Fist Press. Nobody got paid. Perhaps that is the problem? Anyway, ‘Sheep in the Road’ will now appear very sporadically. Without contributors this project has failed to live up to its original ideal!
Maybe the last issue for a while (or maybe Slyce n’Ice not?) ... in the meantime, a luta continua!
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A PAIR OF BROWN EYES One summer evening drunk to hell I stood there nearly lifeless An old man in the corner sang Where the water lilies grow And on the jukebox Johnny sang About a thing called love And it’s how are you kid and what’s your name And how would you bloody know?
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In blood and death ‘neath a screaming sky I lay down on the ground And the arms and legs of other men Were scattered all around Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed Then prayed and bled some more And the only thing that I could see Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me But when we got back, labeled parts one to three There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ I’ll go For a pair of brown eyes
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I looked at him he looked at me All I could do was hate him While Ray and Philomena sang Of my elusive dream I saw the streams, the rolling hills Where his brown eyes were waiting And I thought about a pair of brown eyes That waited once for me
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So drunk to hell I left the place Sometimes crawling sometimes walking A hungry sound came across the breeze So I gave the walls a talking And I heard the sounds of long ago From the old canal And the birds were whistling in the trees Where the wind was gently laughing And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ I’ll go For a pair of brown eyes by SHANE MACGOWAN
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CASTLE CABS: SMOKING KILKENNY Martin Taylor Here are a few photographs I took some years back while working in Castle Cabs taxi office in Kilkenny. They capture a few of the drivers waiting for the next call to come in. The cab office is no longer in operation since deregulation of the industry and the massive boom in the number of taxis on the road, ranks were created and the cab office debunked. The building was originally a ticket office for the railway (see right), I am unsure what else it may have been used for before becoming a cab office but it now has a new lease of life as a sweet shop. It is hard to recognise the place now. Gone is the smoke stained ceiling, the cab office was one of the last bastions of freedom to smoke in a public place after the smoking ban swept the country and subsequently the whole of Europe, gone is the gaudy dirt engrained velour seating, recycled from the pub across the road, gone are the crackling two-way radios, the piped local radio competing with the tv and the fruit machine flashing in the corner, the constant tea making, the ringing telephone and the banter between the drivers; all this before any customers add to the mix, the fighting, the shouting, the haggling, the singing, the laughing, the crying, the puking, the kissing, the sleeping. Drama that one could not dream up. As awful as it was in some aspects, I feel something magical has been lost forever with the demise of the cab office.
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Thanks Martin: good photographs, but some sort of comment is required and I offer the following piece which was written in 2007 ... [ed] That first Neanderthal to dangle a rolled up leaf from the corner of his mouth, wandering for days before he decided, probably on a whim, to set fire to it. Evolving into fidgets who roll their own and still wander through no-smoking zones, being quaintly disparaging about the existence of such areas and seemingly unable to see that theirs is the most truly odd behaviour – their sliver of a paper dangling oh so naturally from a lower lip whilst purposely searching out a communal shoot-up area, for, despite their protestations ... they are drug addicts!
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All the while trying desperately to emulate the romantic vision of a cowboy on the range, or the heroicly pathetic picture of something working class – but sadly just being hopelessly addicted to the lords of tobacco and king rizzla. Yes, pity those hooked on the weed of tobacco – especially those with a taste for the 100 or so chemicals added to the branded cigarette, added just to keep it burning whilst no one is dragging and it’s just fuming – for death resulting from the smoking habit is not at all pleasant, quick or dignified ... for those left behind.
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FEAT OF CLAY Wandering about Stroud we came upon the Republic of Stroud, a gallery showing the art of Clay Sinclair. I particularly like the stolen art angle, for ... although by reproducing iconic images he is still giving them a nod of approval, and using them to give his slogans credibility … he is, in my opinion, also subverting and undermining their ridiculous ££$$ value by his irreverence, insolence, and in-frame captions/slogans. Love it! Upon recommending Clay’s website to a painter friend of mine, his response was, ‘Rip-off, stealing great artwork blah blah blah …’
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I mentioned the way I saw his thought process on appropriation (how I see it?) which kind of shut my painter friend down a bit, but he is a believer in the ‘great artists’ equals ‘objects of great £££ value’ where the argument goes ‘once the art establishment has decided someone is an ‘artist’ anything they do is object value’ … my friend, thankfully, still considers himself a ‘painter’. I personally go for the ‘all art is theft’ notion, all copy from, take from, borrow from, imitate to the point of absurdity, while standing on the shoulders of … those they admire. I am fascinated by the Constructivists/ Bauhaus/DeStijl period and it shows.
acrylic on perspex/plexiglass 125 x 100cm (incl ornate frame) What is an artist? Am I really an artist? Is everyone an artist? Does it really matter?
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Clay, here is a question: how do you see the reasoning behind your ‘art’, its use of icons and its probable entry into the ‘£££ value’ marketplace? Alan, interesting question ... The reasoning behind my art goes pretty much like this: 1) My art always starts with a question or issue I want to explore, ie. What is happiness? Reasons to live? Religion? Why do I do what I do? Identity is at the centre of most of my works. 2) My sketch book is full of words exploring the issue without filter. Humour usually at the centre of it. 3) If the ideas seem worthy of a painting, I then explore how best to express this in a way that is doesn’t distract from my initial question and purpose of the art. Familiar images are a way to connect with the average person. I have absolutely no desire to prove what a technically gifted painter I am or create something that pushes the boundaries of taste or what is perceived as art. The last thing I am seeking to do is impress the art fascists that abound. I just follow my intuition and I’m happy with that. If people like it great, if they don’t, they obviously have terrible taste (smiley-face). It’s worked for me so far and I’m still really excited about where my creativity is leading.
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Hope this gives a basic idea behind my art. Off to get started on my latest painting “State of Religion”. Based around national flags and renaming them, ie. The Ultra Secular State of France. Thank you Clay.
www.claysinclair.com APRIL 2017
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A WEAVER’S REBELLION leaf 5: Riot. 1897 from book, KATHE KOLLWITZ: Graphics, Posters, Drawings Published by Writers and Readers Born Kathe Ida Schmidt, in 1891 the artist married Karl Kollwitz, a doctor in a poor section of Berlin. A committed socialist, she witnessed first hand the travails of poverty, and her art became intimately bound with the plight of the underprivileged. Kollwitz’s first major series, A Weaver’s Rebellion (189798), recounts the 1844 revolt of Silesian weavers against their oppressive employers. The series of six prints was exhibited in Berlin in 1898 and in Dresden in 1899, where it received a gold medal. Here are 2 of the prints ...
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Peter Mitchell signing his book at Vernissage Peter Mitchell, his gallery event hosted by Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris
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Resplendent in his endpaper jacket, Peter poses opposite the title page of his book ... and overleaf, a couple of the photographs from the book and the gallery event, hmmmm, nice.
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A NEW REFUTATION OF THE VIKING 4 SPACE MISSION P E T E R
M I T C H E L L
12 Mrs. McArthy & her daughter. London, 1975
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13 Mrs. Lee. Leeds, 1975
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REVIEW from The Yorkshire Warbler, 10 March 2017
Hello Rudi Thoemmes at RRB
Thanks for the reply, here is a remnant of issue 133 for your files. Unfortunately once its printed we move on to the next issue of fartiness ... we don’t SHEEP IN THE ROAD NUMBER 23 keep: files.
PEEPER by Raisin Wind My reward for being around during the seventies is to be sent from Leeds to Sheffield to interview Edna Morgan, who should have appeared in a new photobook of mainly Yorkshire folk and their environs but whose ‘photograph’ was lost. The book is made from an assemblage of photographs taken by Peter Mitchell in the 1970s and exhibited at the impressions Gallery of Photography in York under a title refuting the Viking 4 Space mission at the end of the seventies.
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I arrive at the spot where Edna tells me the ‘Flying Pig’ pub once stood, Edna is with me and points to a nondescript modern block of offices, nothing to see here now … so we move on. The lost photograph, which Edna saw once, was of the pub, the street, herself and an array of the characters who frequented the Flying Pig posing at the door and under the pub sign. I am here to talk about the photographer, 1975 and the three weeks of preparation and anguish he took to take a photograph, which he then lost. Edna is philosophical in colourful language about the loss. By now we have moved to a quiet pub and the malt whiskey’s are muddling me
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as I scratch a few notes in my wee book … I listen as she fires up the scene, she is delightful company with conflicting accounts but I get the jist … ‘For 3 weeks in June 1975, Peeper, as they called him, skulked around the area, occasionally with his camera but most days just crouching, standing on a box, even lying in the road, gesticulating and squinting through his hands, where by touching forefinger to forefinger and thumb to thumb, he squared up and directed the vistas before him.’
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I try to ignore Edna’s constant derogatory references to Peeper and that he was well known about this part of Yorkshire as ‘weird’, but cannot shake the image of his square-signing at the hint of a good composition … god, at that sight, I would have cracked up too. From that drunken afternoon’s ‘notes’ I have deciphered: ‘… he once said he was interested in our pub (Flying Pig) because he had heard it had been frequented by Ivor Tinkler’ and ‘ … a man called Bladder had told all at the pub that Peeper had approached him where he worked at the ‘Gents’ in the centre and asked him to pose outside with his collection of bog-brushes … we don’t know what happened to that photograph either?’ A recent photograph of ‘Peeper’ Peter Mitchell shows he is still squaring up, his new book, ‘A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission’ is jointly published by RRB Photobooks and editions Clémentine de la Féronnière … and available from www.rrbphotobooks.com and www. galerieclementinedelaferonniere.fr
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JUST FLOATING ONE
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ARTHUR BEAGLE’S DIARY
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www.handoverfistpress.com APRIL 2017
Writing worth reading Photos worth seeing
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http://www.coldtype.net
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Artwork: still unknown
oi matey editor ... we have had a few more comments and goodly remarks, but still no articles or things for publication
46 oh shit this letters page is just boring me to death
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WAFFLE LETTERS –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Dear Editor ... Same old same old! Words fail me, what is the use of words when the person you are saying them to is unable to grasp your, and their, meaning? [this looks like a letter we have already published? ... (‘yes, some’, ed.)] Worryingly, we have left even that irrational road, the one where stupidity reigns, and now follow a path where basic facts and knowledge acquired over time are being replaced by entrenched banal myths, hearsay and superstition. The shit-faced fudge of complacency and the mad spouters will now be defended to the death by the threat of nuclear war.
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Reason cannot be relied on in the present or near future (if ever?) and its utterly terrifying. Just who are the terrorists? For evidence of this I direct your attention to a President Donald Trump and his campaign to trump-trump-trumpety-trump all over the world. And also, as Britain’s government happily applies for Brexit, faking it over questions waving wet fish whackers, like Gibraltar, Northern Ireland, Scotland ... May and her ministers wander the despotic nations trying to flog them weapons ... Whilst I remain optimistic about the future I am absolute in my scepticism about whether the business-arses and their sycophantic political stooges, Blairites and Tories – or the US circus and their trumping flunkies – will come up with anything remotely of benefit to anyone other than the rampantly corrupt ruling class wankers intent on fucking us all. APRIL 2017
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1 9 8 6 2 0 1 7 SHEEP IN THE ROAD (as magazine) #3 October 2015
SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 2 Alan Rutherford 2015
SHEEP IN THE ROAD Vol. 1 Alan Rutherford 2014
KAPUTALA The Diary of Arthur Beagle & The East Africa Campaign, 1916-1918 Alan Rutherford Updated 2nd edn: 2014
IRISH GRAFFITI some murals in the North, 1986 Alan Rutherford 2014
NICETO DE LARRINAGA a voyage, 1966 Alan Rutherford 2014
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SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 23
SHEEP
IN THE ROAD Sheep in the Road as a magazine has writing, photography, cartoons and odd assemblages of ideas, rants and reviews ... eminating from a socialist and thoughtful core. Contributors have included: Brian Rutherford, Rudi Thoemmes, Joe Jenkins, Robert Arnott, Cam Rutherford, Steve Ashley, Lizzie Boyle, Chris Dillow, Chris Hoare, Joanna Rutherford, West Midland Hunt Saboteurs, Chris Bessant, Craig Atkinson, Martin Taylor, Martin Mitchell ... A pleasure to produce ... thank you
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