[kj] Golden Angels

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I had an interesting conversation with Graham Lewis after the Paris gig. He was talking about the moments when art reflects reality perfectly, and everything synchronises so that you experience life to the full. The rational call it coincidence. The irrational read the signs and follow intuition wherever it goes. That's my take, and forgive me if anything I report here is inaccurate as I was drunk and tried. Lewis had been playing a gig abroad and found out that a Chapman brothers exhibition was on in the same city and he had just enough time to catch it quickly, which they found quite incredible. There was also a little girl in a red raincoat balancing still outside the gallery, and he thought at first that she was part of the Chapman's art! When she moved she looked very pleased with herself. I told him about the golden angel in Berlin and he told me I must see a Wim Wenders film called "Golden Angel" in Sverige. In Gross Britannia it was called "Wings
 of Desire." The very next day I hit Brussels for the third time on my trip and had a night to kill before the Killing Joke revelations. Searching the record stores I found a paper about a British film festival and "Radio On" a road movie shot in black and white from 1979 was playing at a really cool cinema with a bar full of exceelent Belgian beer. Wim wenders was mentioned in the French blurb about the film as an inspiration to director Chris Pettit. I thought about my own journey and the parallels therein, and how Lewis had mentioned Wim Wenders the night before without knowing this film was showing. The story concerns a man who leaves his girlfriend, who looks uncannily like Malka Spigel, and travels to Bristol to find out what has happened to his brother who has been arrested for making porn. On his way he picks up and quickly ditches a psycho Glaswegian squaddie hitcher, buys petrol from Sting who is singing Eddie Cochrane songs, and meets a nice
 German lady who is searching for her missing daughter to a soundtrack of Kraftwerk, Ian Dury and Lene Lovich. In the end he lets his car roll off a cliff and takes a train out of it. I think I had a much better trip...

There is also a golden angel on the spire in Brussels Grote Markt. I think overall I would have to say that the best night of the Wire tour was Brussels in the beautiful Botanique and the best night of the Killing Joke tour was the second night in Brussels where the synchronicities went wild and I found the late Paul Raven reflected in almost everything in the Pandemonium. There is a song on the Pandemonium album called Jana (not played live) and I met this talented artist whilst dancing to Pandemonium:

www.tanyajanssen.com

Funny how the letters of the word Jana appear in the middle of her name with the a spun back to the front.