before sunrise

i'm on artangel's mailing list, they sent me something recently about a writer called sukhdev sandhu, some web based writing project he's doing called night haunts, i haven't yet checked it out...

part of the thing they've sent is a list of all the sunsets & sunrises this year...

using this i was aware yesterday that the sun would set @ 17:34, so i was able to fix my puncture (while listening to semble's studio album... fantastic... and also while filming my front wheel going round and then stopping... something which took about 12 minutes the first time i did it, 18 minutes the second time - my camera ran out of batteries midway through the first...)... really slowly... and then get out onto the streets in that amazing light we had... i raced up to hampstead heath,
cycling up the hill, getting to the top about 3 minutes before the sun dipped below the horizon, which in turn was about 10 minutes before the sunset... this being london, the true horizon being a rare commodity...

i'm also now aware that the sun will rise tomorrow morning (later this morning) @ 6:51...

tomorrow i teach from 10:30 am until 8 pm... my otherwise largely leisurely life is a bundle of work tomorrow...

but good work... i love teaching,

me & G just saw before sunrise, a film that was both disappointing and good... a little lame in places, full of beautiful ideas, things i would love to make a film about, almost like two characters from hopscotch, the cortazar novel... there's a short story of his in which a man & a woman are sat opposite on the tube, strangers...

he says to himself that if she returns his look, through the reflection of the glass to their side, he will speak to her... she does, he does... they really enjoy talking together, they get off and sit at a cafe table on the platform...

now hang on... just a moment, but can't we have cafe tables on platforms on our tube here in london? surely ladies & gentlemen there is no good reason not to...

at the end of the short story they decide not to exchange phone numbers, only to meet again if they meet again by chance...

they never meet again...

killer...

really works as a cortazar short story, doesn't work quite so well as an american film, but great that they tried to do it, whether they've heard of cortazar or not...

me & G went up to crouch end and ate in cafe solo, walking back with a slice of cake each from dunn's, along the disused railway, stopping at her folks place to pick up her bass and a mic stand for me, to drink tea and talk... lovely...

then once we were home fairly soon we had a house meeting... been brewing long and some contentious issues were raised... i don't want to go into it here but i fear the motivation behind raising this thorny issue was as an attack on spski and i hope we don't lose him as a result... bleak thought's, but thoughts none the less...

also sends a small shudder through my living arrangement here... just as i'm thinking of moving the piano here i have this minor tremor in my bedrock...

strangely inspirational times... i have at least two, maybe more, different strands of ideas that i can see a way forward with... the gigs that are coming in april which includes the material i'm writing now i hope, the film footage that i've been building up since i edited together the tree films... the films that will come... the rilke poems and the thought of recording versions of the 10 elegies, voice and piano... maybe construct visual accompaniment...

but now to bed, long day ahead...

x

PS the ghetto style of hat wearing being unfolded and so longer, the bulk of the hat coming down behind the head, reaching to the base of my neck... kind of as though i had dreadlocks... which i clearly don't have... photo may well follow,

described as ghetto by me and as hiphop by felinity's namesake who taught it to me, both of us being white middleclass...

x

big gay sad light comic kissing poo

so which film do you think i saw this afternoon?

that takes care of the 1st three words of my title...

very moving, made me cry in a way that hurt me, you know, constricting the throat kind of pain,

the music was great, i'm beginning to take the chip off my shoulder about rufus wainright... the chip had nothing to do with his being gay, i didn't even know, it was because he was all over the place a little while back and i thought...

i don't know, chips being chips, often stupid,

i was great at work today, my last three hour friday, now they're only going to be 90 minutes... which is both rubbish and great...

my apprentice, lovely M (who made that beautiful track with me a little while ago) had a hard time of it and i found a way forward without losing him...

i also found a more ghetto way of wearing the hat... more ghetto and warmer... the warmth being more motivation than the ghetto, although the ghetto does amuse me... (one of those words, the more you say ghetto it starts to sound odd...) anyway it was the suggestion of one of my students, who has the same name as felinity as chance would have it...

i'd taken the train in, disasterous return to public transport as my bike got a puncture yesterday in the rain and i didn't fix it straight away, also was carrying something in for producer G and snow was threatened...

and so after work i strolled along to the river, popped in to the tate modern, saw mapping the studio 2 by bruce naumann which A had recomended to me after seeing my films, i could see why he'd mentioned it to me, at first i wasn't really up for it but after awhile i became intrigued, it's a series of video's of naumann's studio at night, certain things like moths, or rats, caught my attention... it made me wonder if i'd be up for my films in a gallery setting... and also made me want to see them in a gallery setting, in fact in that gallery, which is where i saw a great piece of video work by someone of people diving into water... slowed down, reversed...

today was one of those amazing light days... i found myself singing the words i'd written for E years back, to the tune of my ship (an old jazz standard on miles ahead, one of the gil evans/miles davis albums):

the kind of light that we had today,
teaches me freedom inside,
that i can feel that and still.. i'm yours... you are mine...
i take a sign...

still feel it, and it warms me to my love G these days in the same way.. not that she's getting any 2nd hand song from me... her tune will come...

so anyway i stooged around there for awhile, either side of the river, over the millenium bridge, many pictures, much filming... looking back on it i'm thirsty for a new camera, just for video, the stills that this beast gives me are great, and the video has been a revelation, but i want better definition video... probably a little jealous of felinity's new camera, and mum's actually as well...

also looked back just now at the video i took when grace was here, us reading the three little pigs together... her noticing the similarities in that and the billy goat's gruff book, the same publisher, the same series... although the billy goat's one is better, and not just because i got it for her, this three little pigs is too verbose...

on the video is us putting her jumper on her legs, to which she said:

we need to put the zip at the poo!

poo a constant theme these last few days, from the threat on the train from brighton of: i'm going to poo on your shoulder, to the threat just before she left of: i'm going to eat your poo!

oh and the comic kissing... i am so excited... questionable content feels just like moonlighting all of a sudden...

x

all goddadded out

for the second time in a week i'm clambering back into the world after being wiped out...

after josiah came to collect grace yesterday (45 minutes late) i jumped onto the bike and raced into town, slightly unsure of the route, at one point i was faced with a fairly direct way to where i was going but it was all one way, the wrong way...

but i'm on of those irresponsible cyclists who doesn't care about small things like traffic coming the other way, it's often easier in fact, noone's overtaking you,

i arrived at the curzon mayfair with absolutely no time to spare... felinity was waiting patiently with the tickets to good night & good luck and we strolled in just as the film was beginning... good film, captures those tense times well, and it is a great story to tell...

afterwards in the lobby of the cinema she gave me a hat that she'd knitted for me... it's really lovely, a soft, warm yarn, good shape, and it's thin enough to go underneath my cycling helmet (i think) we went to a small pizza place that i realise now i've been to before, but with who i couldn't say... the picture through that link was taken in that pizza place...

lovely to see her as well, much to talk about what with the christening this weekend gone...

the cycle journey home was really cold, even with the new hat, i guage the coldness by how fast i lose feeling in my fingers and toes and last night was one of the coldest so far this winter... (apparently it snowed this morning, although i was fast asleep)...

when i got in i was absolutely nowhere, all engagements completed i had nothing to be together for and i just came apart, G got in shortly after me and i spent a lot of time leaning on her in a limp way...

i was surprised by the level of tiredness actually, compared to other grace visits i got more sleep this time, and there was less stress,

anyway today is happening very slowly,

many stories from grace's trip but i'll restrict myself to one which adds to the picture of exhaustion i've just painted,

we were going to go to finsbury park to see the swans, it was getting quite late and the light was beginning to fade and her mum was going to be due fairly soon so i wanted to get rocking, she wouldn't get in the buggy, so i told her that we couldn't see the swans without the buggy, it was too far, but we could still go to a smaller park...

she agreed to the smaller park sulkily, so we left the house without the buggy...

last time she'd stayed we'd been to that smaller park and she'd had a great time on the swings then screamed her head off getting off the swings... i was thinking about this and i decided that maybe we should just walk all the way to finsbury park for the swans... it would take longer but she did want to see them...

after one street i picked her up, intending to put her down again at the end of that street, pick her up for alternate streets... but no sooner was she in my arms than she fell asleep... at first i thought i'd just take her straight home again, put her in my bed... but something in me wanted to be true to my intention so i decided to go and see the swans...

and that girl is so much heavier now compared to when she was younger...

it killed me getting to finsbury park... it killed me having to walk around the building work they're doing there to get to the pond... it killed me that there were no swans there... and the pond surrounded by workmen, no nice bench to sit on and gaze at the water, no point waking her up i thought...

really thought about getting a taxi home,

but i gathered my strength and walked all the way back again, kind of similar sensation as when i used to carry my keyboard around, a feeling as though you can't actually do it, but then miraculously you find another strength you didn't know you had...

and when i got to my front door again she woke up and said oh, didn't we go to the park?...

that obscure trip had more to do with me than her i realise... trying to prove something i suppose...

it was a joy having her for the night and day, her dad has recently left the country & she's a little mixed up about it, although this only showed at one point... at the end of the three little pigs story she was mainly interesting in allocating the different brick houses to her parents and her... and sometimes me...

ok, that's my house, that's mummy's house, and that's daddy's house, and that's your house... no, that's daddy's house, ok you can have that house... no that's my house... ok, you can share that house with daddy...

x

grace

she's asleep in my bed... i'll be crawling in beside her in several hours time and she'll be waking up way earlier than i'll want to wake up...

josiah's coming up tomorrow early evening and i'm heading out to meet felinity for a cinema trip...

grace has been great, a small teary moment when we went over some bumps with the buggy on the way to the train station in brighton and i wouldn't let her out to put her feet on them herself, but this only lasted a few minutes...

i foolishly turned down siggi's offer of the portable potty... we went to the loo a few times on the train up from brighton but she was shocked to learn that there was no toilet on the victoria line train....

go and look!

no grace, honestly, there are no toilets on this train...

she held on admirably and asked if she could have a wee in a puddle as soon as we got outside finsbury park station... an offer i should have taken...

just a minute or two up the road and i'd decided to stop and let her wee in the street, but it was too late by then...

uncle longcat i'm weeing the buggy

didn't get her down though, she was still able to see the funny side of it...

by the time we'd got to mine she'd fallen asleep, so i carried her up to my room, stripped off the wet clothes and let her snooze for a little while and i ran a bath...

even when i woke her up to have the bath and eat something she didn't get upset... she was a little quiet for awhile, after the bath she was sat at our kitchen table eating toast while, K, spanish M & T chatted about how their parents don't undertand them...

then her bathroom ablutions, a couple of books (one of which was the three billy goats gruff that i got her for her 2nd birthday and that she loves, the other was the three little pigs that josiah got her for christmas that she also loves), then sleep, i lay beside her for awhile as she dozed off, reaching out to touch my arm as she likes to do...

x

worn out

had a beautiful weekend @ connie's christening... went down with my G on saturday night, stayed in a B&B, arriving at the church on sunday glammed up... as only G knows how to do... me cutting a dash with the paul smith suit beside her...

she's met felinity before but in one fell swoop she met mum & dad, trave & his M, uncle R & aunty J and all four cousins... as well as A & of course connie herself, at one point in the do afterwards three young girls were running in a circuit through the living room where we were and every time they passed G they gazed at her...

she did look fantastic...

we went and saw fun with dick & jane afterwards while waiting for our train back and it was surprisingly great, very funny, essentially fluff, but just right for last night...

then we got two pizza express pizza's & a bottle of rose cava for the return train journey, a moment of genius on her part, the best pizza i've ever eaten...

eventually getting in to ours around 1:30 am this morning, even though i didn't have to be in work today until 2 i'm still really paying for the weekend,

taught 2 sessions and i was good, but i'm no good anymore, really tempted to go home via jai krishna and eat some good, good food...

x

but she was beautiful

manolis enjoys saying something vaguely dirty to me - should he leave his cafe soon, which is pretty likely - if not definate - i will miss his laugh & his conspiratorial beckoning & whispering...

i told him i was writing something for my G and it brought on a host of allusions, old stories, notions...

in my young days...

... but she was beautiful...

so that i could include it in my song he said of himself:

mad as he is he can be very inspirational

semble played for the last time last night and they broke my heart, i went with producer G, he picked me up from brixton, drove me to his for a meal and to check out his new keyboard (and meet his new cat), then we drove over to kingston...

when we arrived we were told that there were aout 16 bands playing and we'd missed 6 of them... pretty soon it became clear that each act was only doing one song, except for semble whose goodbye night it was & and who played a whole set...

it's a sign of how loved they are that so many great musicians (and some not so great musicians) were prepared to just do one tune for them...

G managed to find us two seats in the crowded venue and we saw almost the entire set, leaving just before the last tune in order to drive back into town for my last tube home...

they did many of the tunes off their current album as well as others, a tune called remind me that i remember from the first time i saw them years ago @ the turaya gathering, they've played it every time i've seen them and it's a killer... i'd love to sing it, but they do it so beautifully...

this journey i've been on in the last month with them, seeing them @ bush hall & buying the album, going down to brighton to see them and then last night, my relationship to some of the songs was a little like my relationship to spski's bicycle route that i now know... the repeated experience of them, without really thinking about it, and then the crystalisation of recognition the third or so time...

beautiful mental process...

producer G & me hatching possible plans to play together, he wielding an MPC, perhaps for the gig @ the vibe bar that i'm now doing on april 24th... very up in the air now but possible...

the other thing about semble was the relentless experimentation of it.. they've been playing for 10 years and they're still pushing boundaries and presenting new things, for almost every song last night each member of the band swapped instruments in a way that served the music rather than their ego's...

mad as semble are they can be very inspirational...

but they were beautiful...

x

routes and dark places

went with spski to the NFT yesterday to see kinoautomat, 1967 czech film where the audience votes on which choice the character makes...

interesting, some very funny bits... i found it a little unsatisfying but spski loved it...

anyway, on the way back he took me a route that we've cycled together once before and it's a good one so i tried to remember it...

we passed very close to where my G works and she'll be cycling to work any day now so i'm having a look at routes for her too (not that she's incapable of finding her own route, she's been pouring over maps...),

taught today and afterwards i ambled (can you amble on a bicycle?) down the river for awhile before deciding to try and recreate spski's route...

got it just about, i could have chopped off a corner here and there but i think i've got it, and it's 4.17 miles from right by G's work, as opposed to 4.79 miles, the route i've been following up until now...

oh and the dark places... very eerie... oh yes...

i was walking G up to a watt's session on tuesday, up the disused railway, and she was telling me that she'd walked it once before with shaman (fellow wattage) and they'd walked down a long dark tunnel... well every time i've reached the end of the disused that long, dark tunnel (one of two) has been locked...

i assumed that they must have walked down it a long time ago, but no, she told me, this was late last year...

so yesterday, pre NFT, i jumped on the £10 bike and i set off up the disused, listening to the chords of the song i'm trying to write... it had rained and hailed earlier on in the day and it was very muddy up there, even though the sky was blue, i got covered in black mud, black mud that still clings to my shoes, i kind of like it, very unlondon...

i reached the highgate end and indeed the 2 tunnels were unlocked, at least that end of them, so i locked up the bike and i explored...

pretty scary, even though it was bright outside it was very dark in the tunnels. at intervals along the walls there are hollows that are probably locked doors, or just hollows maybe, almost certainly only about a foot deep, but it's so dark you can't tell, for all you know they could go back much further... i'd seen a bunny version of night of the living dead (me & G's 1st date movie) earlier on in the afternoon and i was scaring myself by thinking of zombies...

the other end is locked but you can see into the now overgrown highgate overground station, another fear that plagued me was that someone would come and lock the other end and i'd be stuck in there...

after i'd been all the way down both tunnels and satisfied myself that there were no monsters/homeless people lurking about i started singing into the tunnel i was in, a strange metallic resonance down there that was very satisfying, changing depending on where in the tunnel you are... i wonder what's happening acoustically...?

i'll definately be going back there...

x

half term

right now is my half term...

hammersmith respects the half term to from 3 to 5 today i would normally teaching, but i'm not...

instead i'm going to go ride up the disused on the bike listening to this mp3 of myself playing the chords to the nuerotic love song i'm trying to right...

then a little later i'm meeting spski at the NFT for an interactive film made in 1967...

earlier, once i'd dragged myself out of bed at a lazy hour, i was drinking the last of the innocent smoothie carton and i was struck by the sight of the light from the back door refracting through the glass i was drinking from, being tilted as i drank to the bottom of the glass... still slightly in the dream world this really captivated me, for a split second...

i'd woken before this to the sound of rain against my window, feeling that it wasn't looking good for the day i went back to sleep, but now (and indeed when i woke up properly) the sky is blue and lovely...

x

napping

(this is how obssessed i am with this game...)

so i was trying to write some lyrics to one of my tunes, about how G sleeps better than i do... and i realised that i was really tired... so i took a nap...

this was around 7ish, woke up around 10ish, really confused, irish G & her A were in the kitchen and i tried a little of her sugar-free cake which was great... very different as a genre to the ordinary cake, but great none-the-less...

i've been called a geek already once today, to carry on in that vein, i'd like to welcome my 2200th visitor... which will happen pretty soon i think... maybe i should offer a prize..?

walked up the disused with G earlier, dropping her off at a watts rehearsal i walked a little further to crouchend, passed Dunn's bakers, considered cake... (just as britney spear's hit me baby came randomly on my ipod shuffle, she's on there because she was a mystery tune for my teaching on monday night (successfully got by one student)... and the production on that tune is so sugary... i found it quite compulsive for a minute or so... then headed straight for the cake shop...)

i resisted cake (for once) and did what i had to do then got the bus home, just stopping in briefly to pick up my book (louis theroux's call of the wierd, christmas present from trave & M) and my bike and then headed out to manolis's, ate very well then was driven to just cycle randomly awhile, west of holloway road, the day giving a certain light...

so anyway, the lyrics must continue... could be something brewing...

x

dream

cycling to work today was a dream, with the silenced menagery...

i so love my bike... the journey home also just as smooth as you like...

the teaching in between these two journeys was also good... the DOTS class showing some real progress in the students, however small the numbers are right now...

and the musicianship class a somewhat crazy but good affair, J my apprentice did a fair bit of the teaching, he also reflected on my own teaching in our discussion at the end, bringing to light how i deal with challenging behaviour and how he'd like to get to the point where he can do the same... a product of my experience, where me & J differ, he's really good but he has very little experience so far...

reminds me of when i was in that place,

i do enjoy teaching...

and now i've got a couple of days off and for once i have a girlfriend on valentine's day, neither of us are too arsed about it, both of us have had too many negative experiences of that day... time to reclaim it...

but i guess it's a little similar to how i feel about reading books that everyone else is reading, a reluctance to go with the herd...

almost tempting to not be at all romantic tomorrow (later today) and just carry on being deeply romantic when we're moved to (which is quite a lot of the time, still early months for our romance...)

but not quite tempting enough... we'll see how our valentine's comes about...

x

menagerie silenced

it had grown a little.. as well as the birds, and the monkeys, there were now some pigs...

the pedals pigs grunting away with the occasional tweet from the pedal birds...

the gear hub monkeys screaming their little hearts out...

so i went down to cycle surgery on holloway road and they sold me a plastic bottle of sturmey archer cycle oil, the very company that made my gear hub in '76 (was it '76?) who got destroyed by some company and then bought out by an eastern company (taiwan i think), surely not in business in the UK at the moment... have their own brand of cycle oil...?

well that's what it says on the bottle and i have no reason to doubt it... glad to get the oil tailor made for my gear hub...

so i swanned home and i poured a little of this stuff into the hub, put some slightly different oil (house oil) on the chain...

and my little beauty is now a quiet little fella...

i cycled up to alexandra palace to see nippy's son R play ice hockey, the hill that hornsey road goes up and down into crouch end was hard work and then nervous fun, i freewheeled most of the very steep descent that i normally brake all the way through...

ally pally itself giving me some insane hillage to deal with...

then sat in the cold with nippy while R's team got destroyed by the opposition, lovely to see her, a long chat, R played well and it was nice to exchange a few words with him after the game,

i cycled home again, already cold, the crouch end hill harder to climb this way and easier on the nerves coming down the other side... much more gentle...

but a very cold journey, fingers and toes were barely speaking to me when i got in...

and i've beaten level 12 on the planarity game which is deeply satisfying...

my G will be home within the hour...

she is lovely...

x

visuality

in a slightly strange space...

not bad as such, but contemplative & restless,

after i posted that last thing from hammersmith work i had a look at what was on at the pictures and i saw that breakfast on pluto was showing for the very last time in london (in it's current run) @ only two cinema's; the croydon clock tower @ the curzon soho...

the curzon soho showing was twenty minutes away, so i jumped on the £10 bike with it's menagerie and i raced over to shaftesbury avenue... hoping that there would be at least 10 minutes of trailers...

the menagerie consists of an aviary and some kind of monkey house i think, the aviary being the squeaking of the pedal axle, the monkeys the screaming of the gear hub...

since my bell's been broken i've been using the screaming gear hub as an i exist/get out of my way sound... it comes every time i freewheel, i think i just need to open the cap and pour oil into it to fix it but i'm kind of liking the screaming just now...

the day was still amazing at this point, now i was cycling away from the sun, the other two journeys today (into londonbridge work, from there to hammersmith) had been into the sun so this was a nice contrast, seeing my shadow stretching out in front of me, my bicycle clipped shins bobbing up and down...

i reached the cinema 5 minutes after the film started but it was absolutely the last chance i had of seeing it so i went in anyway and it was GREAT...

perfect for the day i was having...

after it finished and i'd waited for all the credits to roll, looking out for who sang that great me & mrs jones (billy paul) and to mentally cheer the two van morrison tunes (both off astral weeks), and just to enjoy the dusty springfield tune that was playing (the windmills of my mind) i remarked on it's lastness to the only other people in the place... two women,

the older of the two said that although i wouldn't believe it by the tears running down her face it was the second time she'd seen it... tiny moment of community...

so i cycled home and the sun had long set by now and it was a great deal colder, and i've had one of those odd evenings where you don't really do anything...

just been playing that planarity and i'm loving it... the way the impossible gradually becomes possible, small solutions adding up the whole solution...

x

a gift on this beautiful day

ok, so it would have been better perhaps if they'd let me know that i wouldn't be teaching @ hammersmith today, but then i wouldn't have got to do that journey...

let's start earlier shall we?

last week and this week i had a reason to be @ londonbridge work before coming here to hammersmith, which allowed me to still carry on with the filming project that needs me to be at certain points on that journey at the right time of day...

a jetty on the south bank of the river (near the oxo tower, although not the one directly by the oxo tower),

the canada memorial in green park (or is it st james park? i realise that i don't really know which bit of park is which in the middle there, it's all park...)

my regular work on thursday mornings @ londonbridge work stopped a few weeks ago & i've been reluctant to let go of the filming thing...

so it was nice to be able to carry on with that today, particularly as it is such a fantastic day...

and i suppose this represents the end of that bit of filming, i really like the notion that it will all be at roughly the same time of day for this project, so although i may return to those locations... unless i make a point to be at those places at those times... which is possible...?

anyway, after the lovely journey i arrive and discover that there are no lessons...

but as nobody told me this i should still get paid...

nice

x

winning

i've been losing a fair bit recently, over on gameknot,

also in real life, lost 2 games in a row to W, my G's dad, after having beaten him convinsingly always in the past... G, whose competitive streak extends to her imidiat family has stopped crowing on W's behalf now but i'm sure once she's reminded of it by reading it here she'll begin again...

funny how that paragraph contained many words that i couldn't spell, for once i decided to press on, not find another word i can spell... spelling,

anyway, losing...

i just won a game over there which was particularly satisfying, yes they quit before the final kill but still the magical energy of winning is there, somehow related to the killing of animals for food, some manly architype that my vegetarianism pushes into the realm of chess...

and i think that maybe it's a sign that my winning days may be returning,

damien rice's music, i always found it a bit like being in love, still has that...

like semble last week, their live gig, i was recounting it to M & L @ work and i made the same analogy, like being in love,

before remarking that i am in love... and maybe that's why i've been losing, some twist on unlucky in love...

anyway, beautiful day out there...

going out in it

x

black flags

this news link from the BBC is really pleasing me, international news by headline every day if i want it...

i have no idea how i would go about getting it if i didn't already have it...

so today we have the scientific team who have been spending time in papua and finding any number of new species...

and then castro erecting a massive statue holding 138 black flags, directly in front of the US embassy in havana, in response to the US putting an electronic, scrolling sign on their building...



the people in the picture are holding pictures of those who have been killed by US violence...

if it weren't for the tragic element this would seem so much like an argument between two neighbours on a street, the husbands erecting more and more bizaare and ridiculous things in their gardens while the wives and the children look on in amazement...

the black flags though, anarchist icons, can't help but like it...

day off today and i'm taking it really slowly, the beginning of the new semester this week and it seems that i'm only at londonbridge work mondays & fridays now, with hammersmith on thursdays... a life of leisure, maybe should find a little more work but equally i should be able to achieve a fair amount of artistic stuff in this time...

yesterday i was teaching the musicianship module to the teaching students, including P who asked me to show her a little more of the bach piece after the class... teaching with J again as my apprentice, J who may end up teaching felinity's flatmate guitar, great situation, great subject, great students, great apprentice... very happy...

x

slightly bruised

went down south for G's birthday, he who records me... felt all very easy, cycling down to kingscross thameslink then 25 minutes to tulse hill, then 5 minutes to the place...

had a nice couple of hours, a couple of bombay sapphire gins, some good company...

got back on the bike heading home for the party feeling on top of things, powerful, you know, cool, a little drunk, but the drunk that gin gives you, sophisticated...

anyway, got to kingscross and the area just decided to do me in a bit... not much, just a bit...

walking up the stairs with the bike under my arm, a patch of water on a landing and i slipped, didn't fall far, landed on the bike which stood up... just hurt my hand a little and was shaken...

concern from fellow passengers...

then out onto the streets and i haven't done that route for a little while so i'm thinking a fair bit, see a street which i at first dismiss but then decide to go for, a sharp turn on an icy road...

this time on the floor...

again nothing too serious, just a little bruising, upset...

cycled home carefully, got in, the beats pumping from down below, just had a shower...

my beautiful cat balthazara here where her food is for the party... loving me in that way she has, when i need a little feline love...

about to get dressed and find that party feeling... must be here somewhere...

x

sorabji

when i first learnt about skryabin, the russian composer, i was told that effectively he was the end of the line, noone came after him to continue what he was doing...

a few weeks ago i went over to uncle filmo's with bo and one of the things he played us was le jardin de parfum by sorabji (spelt wrong i'm sure, from memory), solo piano music, very beautiful, sparse, although dense at times, i'd never heard of him...

he was born in england to an indian father and possibly sicilian mother in 1892, died in 1988 having published over 100 works (largely for piano),

in 1913 he attended skryabin's performances in london...

so now i'm downloading as much as i can from soulseek, (strange what turns up on soulseek) and listening to bits of it...

ethereal,

insanely complex,

oh filmo you lead me down some strange pathways...

oh and my life... oh yes...

the lesson on thursday was a triumph, subtle mix of carrot and stick (largely carrot), i came home and slept for 12 hours which was sorely needed, went to work yesterday for the final assessment of the search & reflect intensive... lovely, not real teaching, just checking out where the students have got to with it all, validating,

and today i'm going to go down south for producer G's birthday before coming back up here for a mini-party tonight...

x

semble josiah cheeky f**kers

just about got back to my human self again after last night, went down to brighton to see josiah & semble, semble's penultimate gig, they were achingly beautiful, josiah lovely, grace this morning was a joy, i this morning was a wreck...

came back to london to meet with G (recording G) with some ibuprofen and some toast, that was good, engaging the brain,

i just cycled over from londonbridge work to hammersmith work, where last week my students really pissed me off...

we'll see how today goes...

i have a plan... and i am human again...

x

shameless denied catnip dark lullaby

last week at the same time josiah was here and we ran up the stairs to see shameless only to find irish G sat watching a DVD...

this week i'd arranged to meet the very same irish G up there for it, stepped in only to find K & M sat watching a DVD...

denied, two weeks in a row, you'd have thought this would happen all the time, but until recently i've never had to reserve the TV for something i'd like to watch...

the winter months bringing the cold... bringing more of the residents into the TV room...

damn them...

so instead of watching shameless i went downstairs with balthazara to have a play with the catnip... the plant that i brought home from work, given to me by sox's T, only just got around to reading up on it on the web, previously i've put the plant on the ground and she's gone up to it to check it out, sticking her nose into it...

T had told me that they like the leaves dried... so i'd picked off some dried leaves and crushed them but she hadn't seemed that interested, now i find that i have to pick a healthy leave and dry it myself... not so straightforward...

and i'm wandering if she's immune to it, she doesn't go particularly crazy for it, but then maybe she's not getting the right dosage/fix..?

more news as and when it comes in...

and then the dark lullaby, which now seems to be hanging out with an older tune that i found written on some paper when i was looking for tax return related things...

this other tune was only the bare bones, i played it the other day and i remembered it but the arrangement i was playing before wasn't there... i've been playing around with it for the last few days trying to awaken the tune in my head/soul/body... tonight after the catnip test i came up to the fender rhodes and gave it another go and another piece fell into place, how i'd been playing it, and now i'm wandering just when that was...?

this one is a rising thing, set against the dark lullaby which is falling, they're definately related, belonging to the same family... just got to stitch together a family tree and find the missing links...

x

online tax return

and lo it did happen...

had to ring the helpdesk once...

but he was very helpful...

and it's done...

WAY too easy...

still slightly in shock...

x

all in place lovely day

ok, just worked out my expenses for that tax year, i think i have all the information i need to fill in my tax return...

so tomorrow, apart from the meeting i'm meant to attend for work, i will complete my tax return...

that's the plan anyway,

now i can do it online i have a childish desire to submit it at 11.55pm on tuesday, being absolutely the very last 5 minutes before i get fined £100...

bravura, in a boring subject...

me & G spent today wandering around town, chinese new year and we missed the fireworks, arriving at travalgar square dead on 5... only to learn much later that the fireworks had been at leicester square...

another great plan from me... she didn't seem to mind too much though, we have so much fun together... last night she came out with me to meet loads of my old friends, pretty traumatic for her... she was a star...

drunken night, all that bombay sapphire...

anyway today, we went to the pictures and took a good long moment deciding between hidden & fun with dick & jane... (which i so want to see tha original of, saw it when i was young with jane fonda... loved it, never seen it since, nor heard of it... )... hidden winning in the end... hardcore intense over fun, fun, fun...

heavy film, great, irritating...

ok, must sleep...

i love my girl...

almost tax returned...

x

satisfying

about 30 minutes ago i was facing the fact that i had to find 2 things, here, in this room...

tax return related...

the first was the relevant payslip, the second was the letter from the inland revenue containing my user ID for the online tax return...

now last weekend i found the tax return itself which was a milestone and i was disapointed to find that i hadn't put the relevent payslip with it as i thought i'd done last april...

i've turned over much of my room since then looking for the payslip, turning up interesting things as this always does, like the cd of houselink, the backing for... a hotel full of cops track that we used to do live based on my bassline... of which there is a tiny clip of on the website from around 2000 (listed as live at the mass, brixton under live tracks), now the whole of that recording i would be so happy to find... anyway, this cd made me wander about using the backing and performing a version myself, on my own, at the vibe bar in a month or so... singing as well as playing groovy rhodes keys...?

anyway, each area of my room that i checked out at least allowed me to cross off the list, where the payslip could be was getting smaller and smaller...

but now i had to find something else as well and would have to revisit all the regions...

it looked bleak...

and then within 20 minutes or so i found them both...

the payslip was nestled in the pages of the tax return, if i hadn't opened the tax return i would have carried on looking potentially right up to the 31st deadline...

and then the user ID which i'd thought was probably in this computer, surely i would have made a note of it somewhere, just pops up finally in a nondescript looking file...

so now i have it all...

the first discovery made me shout with satisfaction, the second just made me smile in that relieved way...

oh tax return you are a rollercoaster...

x

numbers

at the start of the evening, when i was still at work, i had 15 (x2) essays to write feedback for...

in order to make it easier on my mind i split them into 3 groups of 5...

i didn't last long at work, the radio station underneath us (that i used to DJ for, many years ago) held a meeting just where i was trying to work...

i cycled along the river to clear my head, listening to my shuffle, cycled past the critical mass that was gathering by the NFT, a chill in the air and the beginnings of rain, cycling as fast as i could when the space allowed me...

got as far as the point where you can drive down to the water's edge, towards vauxhall, paused with the music of meshell ndegeocello dying in my ears, gazing at the water, orange streetlights reflected... then raced back, this time the critical mass people were gradually moving out... made it back to the tate modern and crossed over the river at the millenium bridge...

took off my headphones, strapped on my helmet and made it home eventually with cold, cold hands...

that clearing of my head cycle journey on this cold night was a strange choice... but it was great...

anyway, the essays, got through the first third of them before i got hungry, did just one more which disturbed the symmetry of the three's or so i thought, but on the way to jai krishna's where i was picking up my meal i realised that 6 is 2 fifths of 15... each fifth being a 3...

about the enter the 3rd 5th... the 7th and 8th (pair of) essays, being the guardians of the halfway point... once i've done 7 i'm almost halfway, 8 and i'm past it... then with 9 i'll be 3 5th's and my G will be home,

might call it a night on these then... alternating between tax return searching and completing these tomorrow...

i think the looming tax return has increased my fascination with numbers...

x

work

end of my teaching week... but i'm going to stay here @ londonbridge work, finishing the essay feedback that's been hanging over me...

the tax return looming beyond these essays winking at me... the weekend quite possibly lost in a flurry of displacement activity...

beautiful day it was today, one of those really bright glaring sun bicycle journeys, depending on the road, certain roads pointing directly at the sun...

makes you more aware of the angle of roads to each other...

my bike fell over as i was filming the canal on my way to work and my smily face bell broke... hopefully fixable...

anyway, to it...

x

backwards hangover celebration

my first thursday without londonbridge work today...

so i cycled over to hammersmith from here...

and then after work i cycled over to londonbridge work to drink to the memory of a student who died a couple of years ago...

so a backwards thursday...

the entire cycle journey backwards....

the hammersmith part was good, it's a route i'm a still a little hazy on as i cycled it with a friend from there so much, didn't have to know the way... he's started leaving work ealier now so i'm on my own and it's still solidifying...

really good to have to do it backwards... gets the brain working,

which was good today because my brain wasn't really working, me & G celebrating with alabama slammers last night and i had a sore head this morning... my hammersmith class really demoralised me today, just didn't feel equal to the teaching task what with the hangover and it's not solid enough that it just runs on it's own, it needs constant attention and i wasn't as good as i could have been today...

but i was still good... certain students having semi ah ha moments... always nice...

after work i sat for awhile in an almost pitch black room and played the piano... at first the odd random effect of not knowing what keys i was touching, but once i'd found myself i addressed myself to C, the student we were raising our glasses to tonight and i set to it...

a great thing in 5 came through... maybe weld it onto the fragile beginnings of the current piano piece... producer G was there tonight and he told me that he 's eager to get recording again... he who recorded connie with me about 4 months back, being the first to this fragile second...

also amongst us was M who has been my apprentice for many years but is no longer, spreads her independent wings these days, she taught the search & reflect intensive on wednesday that i'd been doing on monday, and now she's off to australia with her loved one... great to see her this last time...

M & M made up the 5 of us, with L leaving just as i arrived earlier on in the night... M being my work sister/confidante & M being the man who came round and fixed my fender rhodes last year...

lovely people, the memory of C carried us through, a celebration more than a mourning,

x

doing good work

lovely to have the mother & daughter here, grace destroyed the remote controlled car that G got me for christmas, this morning i had books for her on the edge of my bed, ready for her, she rolled in around 9:30, wake up uncle longcat... wake up... oh... let's read this...

at one point it looked like a beautiful day, once josiah & grace had gone on their merry way me & G were going to celebrate 4 months of loving by going to kew gardens... but the weather didn't hold and we had one or two troubles to overcome (out in the world troubles, not trouble in paradise troubles) so we went to the V & A...

her dad has some hand printed wallpaper in the permanent collection there, we didn't find it...

strolled over to the prince charles cinema to see broken flowers from one of those sofaish two seaters at the back... great film, bill murray... yes please...

then on the way home we tried to find felinity but somehow missed her... very cold night to be wanderly along the caledonian road...

now we're both a little tired, although me more than her, we're about to crack open the champaigne...

a little champaign, some seinfeld...

x

day off grace coming vibe night

yesterday was the first day of the intensive 2 week search & reflect workshops @ londonbridge work...

i taught the first day and also ran my notation class in the evening and i was in a pretty out there state when i finished...

cycling up towards london bridge weighing up whether i was just going to go home or go out to S & M's live night @ the vibe bar...

the vibe bar won and it was lovely to see them... crazy stuff going on, i'd missed 2 acts already and the first act on when i arrived was a mad duo, japanese woman and english woman... singing elaborate, produced, sometimes beautiful, original music to a backing track... S controlling the CD so he had to nip behind the DJ every tune, wearing his trademark hat...

by the looks of it i'll always miss M's set at the start of the night because of when i finish teaching, but i think i'll be going to quite a few of those nights... a little bit of sunshine... looks like i'll be playing there in march... potentially with L, who showed up last night as well, if he's not in australia...

really nice to have the three of us there, me, S & L, all kyo folks,

L had turned up with A... conscious, berobed, dread, rastafari singer who was on last, i hadn't seen him play for years... not that i've seen him socially for a little while either, he used to do his thing down at that pub in brixton where i played and where i joined kyo, S having moved up in the world from running that night to running this one...

A was great, his material has moved on a little, more fullon dance music than before, very accomplished sound on his backing tracks, great performer...

went round to L's afterwards for a tea, he lives in a great place right by the vibe bar, very close to spitalfields, his roof is stunning, he played me some tracks of his that he's got together with a harmonica player and the other S, another percussionist... lovely stuff, he wants some piano on some of it which pleases me...

then eventually i went out into the night, pretty drunk, racing home on the bike...

waking up today slowly, not much longer before josiah comes and i've still got one or two things to get ready...

x

whale dies

just heard, he/she was on a barge heading down the river towards the thames barrier...

wasn't paying attention properly, don't know what she/he died of but it's not been an easy 24 hours for the interloper...

i was down by the river this afternoon again, me & spski cycled down to the south bank to see a talk on variety shows given by various interesting people...

he took me on a great route from ours that i'm going to have to try and recreate, not my normal route by any means... culminating with waterloo bridge which we crossed around 2:15 with the sun shining through the millenium wheel in that classic almost smoky way that these winter days have sometimes...

the whale at that point was further upriver... battersea bridge, being coaxed onto the barge i guess...

of the people speaking at the thing we went to spski's work-mate C gave a 10-minute anthology of great vaudeville acts through the decades (starting in 1902), really great, a woman whose name i've already forgotten talked about her work in theatre and street theatre... a company called hesitate and ... hesitate and demonstrate maybe, alot of what she said resonated with me and with friends of mine, bo who i saw last night and my G...

a man called T had much interesting talk... related the words showman and shaman which i like...

also there were a stripper/burlesque teacher and an artist/performer who does odd marionette style dance in shop windows... or has done anyway...

met a scottish woman who i've met before and couldn't work out the connection, i've definately met her somewhere, some project i did years ago... tantalising...

anyway as i said, i saw bo last night with filmo @ his, spent part of the night playing that beautiful piano while we chatted and bo video'd around us with her new phone... interesting shape coming out on the piano, could become the second piano piece that started with connie...

lovely, lovely night... the first of many i hope in that house, reminded of how great the space is where that piano is and i want to do another gig there in the next few months...

which ties in with the fact that S offered me a spot at his live event @ the vibe bar this coming monday... i turned it down because i don't have anything ready right now but i'm really up for doing something... on my own if i can, scary prospect...

and that poor whale who lost her/his way... they weren't that hopeful yesterday about it's chances... sad though, i wanted it to have a happy ending...

x

whale trapped in the thames

after work today i cycled by the river for a litle while, it was a beautiful if cold day and the thames path was pretty busy, my camera ran out of batteries as i was doing a bit of filming for one of my projects so i didn't go on to take advantage of the amazing light as i might have done...

this was around 3pm and i don't know exactly but this whale would have been in the thames at that time... i didn't see him/her but i'm pleased that i was on the river today...

went out with uncle filmo last night to the redrose, very close to my house, to see han bennink, the dutch improvising drummer...

the redrose was packed, i have never seen an improv gig with an audience like that, for the first 5 minutes of so after i arrived i was wedged into a crowd just a meter from the door...

improv events are normally very poorly attended, it's not a big scene, but then he's a big name, and there was some drum'n'bass link-up apparently, springheel jack were putting on the night... not that i know who they are...

when i arrived he was doing a solo piece, i wish i'd got there earlier as this was pure gold... wonderful playing, inventive...

after the break he was joined on stage by a host of players, including AW who is one of my apprentices for the improv workshops i teach... great sax player, fiery, quite scary at times...

but there were too many of them and it didn't work at first, not like the immediate, visceral stuff of the first half, after a bit of playing they found some interesting places but i would have preferred to see some smaller groups, duo's ideally...

han bennink himself had just got back from america where it appears he was involved in some education work, there were photo-copies of letters written by students about him on different coloured card/paper... a couple of quotes:

he was the most lively, exciting, amazing drummer i've heard live or on recording. it was the most inspirational art experience i've ever had...

to me, han truly was an inspiration through his incredibles sense of unrestrained, unlimited, free expression. i have never encountered someone who lets their energy flow loose like han's does...

tell it like it is school kids...

oh and i've been working out some ideas i've had for awhile about the i-ching and musical scales over on deoxy, in response to something someone posted about the guitarist pat martino... interesting to put it down these kind of thoughts...

going out tonight's to see filmo and bo, who's coming over to his, also where that beatiful piano lives... also where my landlord lives...

x

yes i'm a geek

but i'm a quiet geek...

today was the second time i took off my motherboard... the first time was when i took it off to fix... well, in the end replace it...

taking off the motherboard was previously a scary prospect and now it's nothing special... i only wish my tax return followed the same trajectory...

beginning with very scary prospect we're now at scary prospect, 5 years later... more on that in the next week and a half...

last april i appear to have laid the groundwork for this year's tax return so you never know, we might get scary prospect down to unsettling prospect...

ok, geek statistics:

my AMD athlon 1800 processor was running at 40C before... a perfectly happy temperature, with a really loud CPU fan/heatsink buzzing away on top of it...

now it runs at 39C with a very sexy and quiet CPU fan/heatsink on it with the option of turning off this fan... leaving the heatsink alone to deal with it and my CPU temperature goes up to 45C...

perfectly happy still...

i am a great deal happier with my beautiful beast of a computer, i am also thankful to quietPC who have sold me both the quiet power supply and the quiet CPU fan/heatsink...

and finally i am thankful to the nice man who delivered my fan/heatsink this afternoon, exactly the same man who delivered my quiet power supply and flatscreen monitor last thursday morning... nice to see a friendly face...

of course within a few days the much reduced volume from my computer will seem loud again... i will be pushed once more into a never ending search for a genuinely silent computer...

but i'm happy now...

x