A Real Man Passes

March 6, 2006 5:54 PM

Ivor Cutler, 1923-2006; poet, artist, musician, mensch; passed away on Friday. (previously)
posted by scruss (31 comments total)

.
posted by 327.ca at 6:02 PM on March 6, 2006

Damm.
Saw him at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester back in the mid eighties. That same night Psychic TV were playing the other auditorium so there was quite a mix of people in the bar beforehand.
I think Mr Cutler was ten times weirder and a thousand times wiser that PTV though.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:35 PM on March 6, 2006

My wife used to sell him bread in Camden. He gave her a lot of stickers which said things like "to remove this sticker, peel it off". We stuck them everywhere we went.

I can never forget his poem which went, in its entirety:

If your breasts are too large
You will fall over
Unless you wear a rucksack
posted by unSane at 6:37 PM on March 6, 2006

.
posted by trip and a half at 6:53 PM on March 6, 2006

ah. The world is a better place because Ivor Cutler lived. A charming and bravely quirky soul. Here's him singing a poem/song, I Believe In Bugs [scroll 3/4 down the page, next to the image of a blue bug]. One of the lines of the poem/song is,"
Lying in the silken ground one day, I shall sense the buggies wriggle as they eat me away."

There's another Ivor Cutler poem/song at pixelheadpix's very likeable site at the bottom of the page "Good morning, how are you? Shut up"
posted by nickyskye at 7:07 PM on March 6, 2006

If someone is ugly,
don't say to them "you are ugly."
Say, instead, "what an interesting physiognomy you possess."
posted by theperfectcrime at 7:07 PM on March 6, 2006

"One day I went into a place called Box & Cox and the boss man there was a fellow called Boxy. I was dressed up all peculiar, a big bag on my back with paintings in it and a dirty old duffel coat. I put on a deadpan voice and said, "I understand you buy songs here." He said, "Yes", carefully. I said, "Would you like me to sing one of my songs for you?" He said, "Yes", it was five o'clock in the evening, he had a fire going, he was relaxing. So he got one or two of his chums and pointed to a piano that was against the wall and he sat behind me. I said "I've got different songs. It could be a funny one or it could be a serious one." He said, "Oh, play what you like." So I sat down and played this funny one. After a while I was listening, I heard. I carried on to the end, turned around, and Box was lying on the floor, his face purple. I said, "It's OK, you can laugh." He said, "We get some funny people in here and they would be terribly hurt if we laughed, because they see themselves as being very serious." So he took me on and started me in my music career"
posted by unSane at 7:18 PM on March 6, 2006

.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 8:30 PM on March 6, 2006

I was never a fan, but the world is definitely much poorer without the man.

.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:53 PM on March 6, 2006

I've never heard of this guy before today. What a way to discover something new that you like. I'm loving the stuff in these links.
posted by tellurian at 10:22 PM on March 6, 2006

.
posted by klausness at 11:13 PM on March 6, 2006

There's a clip of Cutler reading the breast poem on the front page of ivorcutler.org.

If there's a heaven, I'm sure Ivor and John Peel are having a good laugh about now....
posted by geneablogy at 11:44 PM on March 6, 2006

Thanks, geneablogy. I'm still laughing after hearing Ivor read that poem. There's something about his delivery that makes hearing it much funnier than just reading it....

(listening to an Ivor Cutler CD right now in his memory)
posted by klausness at 12:41 AM on March 7, 2006

.
posted by the cuban at 1:25 AM on March 7, 2006

.
posted by johnny novak at 1:25 AM on March 7, 2006

It's gruts for tea in heaven tonight.
posted by Jofus at 1:30 AM on March 7, 2006

(Not to mention lashings of egg meat.)
posted by Jofus at 2:26 AM on March 7, 2006

Another obit, from the Telegraph.

It was once said of Ivor Cutler that he was "a man for whom the tag 'eccentric' seems pitifully inadequate". He himself said: "I don't work in a way that is socially useful, but I do say things obliquely about society… Yes, I am an eccentric. No, I am not a nutter."

Alzheimer's? Damn, that's cruel for one so sharp.
posted by holgate at 2:34 AM on March 7, 2006

.
posted by anagrama at 3:23 AM on March 7, 2006

big old shoes to fill.

.
posted by asok at 3:38 AM on March 7, 2006

Also the voice behind the worrying monologue at the end of Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road from Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom. And Buster Bloodvessel in The Magical Mystery Tour.

I saw Ivor Cutler perform twice, once (reading poetry) supporting The Divine Comedy, the other time with full harmonium accompaniment singing songs supporting Elvis Costello at the Royal Festival Hall, which was probably a lifetime's ambition fulfilled for me. He asked the audience to clap quietly as he didn't like loud noises, which is quite a challenge for a couple of thousand enthusiastic people. And he did A Wooden Tree, which was nice.

I'd recommend Egg Meat as one of the scariest things ever. I heard it in a Peel session in the late Seventies (possibly my introduction to Cutleriana), half-asleep, and it completely terrified me.

There is a site out there that used to offer a lot of now-unavailable stuff which you might find if you look for it.

(I've forgotten where, and besides it wouldn't be fair to the fellow hosting the site)

There's a recent documentary, Looking for Truth with a Pin. The DVD includes Ivor's farewell performance and is apparantly available from FOPP (and the publisher if you can find the information in the flash interface).
posted by Grangousier at 3:39 AM on March 7, 2006

.

very, very .
posted by flashboy at 3:54 AM on March 7, 2006

.
posted by seanyboy at 3:55 AM on March 7, 2006

Ok, last comment, I promise, but this interview with Emma Freud bears listening to. (direct link to MP3.)
posted by Jofus at 4:11 AM on March 7, 2006

Ah, shit. I loved the man. One of the last of the great British eccentrics. Cutler and Viv Stanshall helped make my teens a lot more bearable than they otherwise would have been and I only appreciated them more as I grew older.
posted by Decani at 5:48 AM on March 7, 2006

He was great. I have played every bit of audio I could scavenge up over the last year on my dinky community radio show. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

.
posted by Fezboy! at 5:49 AM on March 7, 2006

I was introduced to the work of Ivor Cutler by my first British boyfriend. The boyfriend turned out to be a wanker, but my love for Ivor endures.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:06 AM on March 7, 2006

Good morning.
How are you?
Shut up.
posted by zonkout at 6:37 AM on March 7, 2006

wonderful man, egg meat
.
posted by brilliantmistake at 10:20 AM on March 7, 2006

:(
posted by carter at 9:15 PM on March 7, 2006

A Real Man

When I was 12 I wanted to be a real man — an old man with a beard, sitting at a table with a huge book full of wisdom. And what did society hold up to me for my admiration? A golfer, a boxer, a man who ran quickly; a soldier, a lawyer, a tycoon; a motorist, a pop star; a footballer. Into what kind of madhouse had I been born? And what have I become? A child, witlessly pouring out whatever enters my head. I am a madman and people gather to listen to me make a fool of myself. I am not a role model. This is my protection and security. I still long for the table and the book, the smell of an old man and an old book; the afternoon light fading.

— from South American Bookworms.
posted by scruss at 3:14 AM on March 8, 2006