The Good
Barry returned to England from Australia in May 1989 to teach for a week in Bristol. By then there were several hundred people in Europe receiving his monthly Talks From Tamborine Mountain (sent out as short recordings on cassette) and most of the subscribers for these tapes took the chance to come and hear him speak daily at The Victoria Rooms. This early Victorian neo-Gothic Assembly Hall, now owned by Bristol University, is in an imposing position in the city and has a distinguished history, hosting lectures by Charles Dickens, among many others. In 1989 the ground floor of the theatre held around 450 people and it was almost full for every session all week.
Barry's talks had always been recorded, with the intention of releasing edited selections on cassette. The problem with these tapes was that each side of a cassette ran for no more than 45 minutes. Barry would speak for up to three hours, twice a day. The person doing the recording, in this case Trevor Davies, had to be alert enough to turn the tape over in the machine quickly and at an appropriate moment. Trevor didn't want to miss anything Barry said and proposed using video tape to make the sound recording as it had more duration. He borrowed a camera and tripod (in those days video cameras were hefty bits of kit) and set it up on the edge of the balcony overlooking the audience below. There was no intention to actually film the event, but of course it made sense to point the camera at Barry on stage and let the camera run.
Twenty years later someone was rearranging the Barry Long Archive at the Foundation offices in Australia and came across the Bristol video tapes. What Barry was saying seemed so fresh and direct. The tapes were obviously valuable, despite the relatively poor quality of the visuals and the remote angle of the one static camera. At the time The Foundation wished to acknowledge the people who had been donating funds to keep it in business. So a limited edition DVD was made from the original tapes of one of the Bristol sessions and sent to the donors as a gift. It was titled THE GOOD.
This is the earliest available video record of Barry Long teaching at a public meeting. The theme of the talk is: To rediscover the wonder of life, give up wondering. Of course, as with all his talks, the content is vast and wide-ranging.
Filmed at a talk by Barry Long on 19 May 1989 at The Victoria Rooms, Bristol, UK. The earliest video footage of Barry Long teaching.
Released: September 2014 [Previously issued as an extract from The Barry Long Archive with limited distribution in 2009].
Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes.
Sara Koh