almost over 2004

& the number of casualties from the tsunami keeps growing and growing, 11000 the day it first hit the news, now it's 125000...

not that i have anything intelligent to say on the subject just disbelieve.

i'm @ home and i intend to be @ home all night, my first new years eve without a party for awhile, last year i was in kinsale in ireland playing a gig with KYO, then onto a party by the sea, lovely, mad, mad & lovely...

this year just me & P, a little psilocybin, some crayons, a lovely chocolate cake, music, candles,...

what else is there ladies and gentlemen?

x

home again

lying awake last night in my sister K's house, (why doesn't she have a proper pseudonym?, (is that how you spell that word?)), worrying about my friend bo because of something josiah had said at her drunkest on tuesday night (alongside threatening to kill P if she hurts me... several times), i got out of bed (another K in K's house, not there and kindly let me sleep in her bed), popped down to get my arnica from my coat pocket, did a couple, then went back to bed and read a little of the pessoa book.

it struck me that if there had been blogging in 1930's portugal then he would have been a blogger, The Book of Disquiet is written as though it were a blog, roughly 450 entries, not really relating to each other, no story that unfolds, just many, many moments, very beautiful, last night as i couldn't sleep the entries concerned not sleeping, (by coincidence)...

i came to K's straight from Brighton where i'd been visiting with grace & josiah with P, josiah had been spending christmas staying in the house of Y & M, Y being a teacher i work with on fridays, grace called me uncle R when we arrived in Brighton, just once or perhaps twice, then reverted to Wa Ha for the rest of the trip. she can walk, very unsteadily, but she can do it, i think she walks a little like a scarecrow.

P had never seen a pebbled beach before...

me & K went for brunch today in wandsworth and had we had time we would certainly have walked upon the common which was very inviting, we saw shaun of the dead & elf last night on DVD, they were great, it was lovely to see K, hope to walk on commons with her in the future.

and i saw E this afternoon, cups of tea and then gin, left me a little melancholy, drifted around town getting a few things, fell into a conversation in a sainsburies because i was playing chess on my phone, a game called chess buddy which i downloaded for the princely sum of £3 yesterday on the train, i've beaten it twice it's beaten me (at least) twice, it's on easy mode,

P beat me at chess!

on monday night, the first time, we've been playing on gameknot alot and her rating has gone right down because i keep beating her, she's learning fast..

glad to be home,

x

home (london town)

and P's on her way round in a little bit, then me & her popping down to Brighton for one night to see Josiah & Grace, can't wait to see my goddaughter, but more so i cannot WAIT to see my lover.

had a lovely time with the family, slept alot, ate loads, particularly ate lots of nuts, spent many an hour gazing at a quiz set by the blewbury bulletin, crossword type puzzle hell...

anyway this is just brief, gotta jump in the shower & get myself clean for my lady,

I HAVE SEINFELD!!!!!

(i know you know, i'm just pleased again)

x

seinfeld elf

a small bit of christmas intrigue when i said to K (sis) that my only fear was that she had got me the same present that i got her...

this small frisson turned into intense curiousity as she started feeling the width of my present to her, the next stage was logic, i reached my conclusion as to my present and she worked out what hers was...

today we discovered that we were right, and i have to say she did better than me, elf was fantastic when we saw it last christmas but seinfeld is a long distance winner, just tried to watch the first episode (of series 3) but the christmasy banter and noise meant we had to abort, seinfeld far too serious to be misheard...

other DVD plans this christmas include the remaining episodes of spaced, maybe harvey, the james stewart film that i got for my mum, and really want to see....

i miss P,

spent a lovely night with my old friend M, blewbury resident, smoking a narguille, drinking, although i'm still in low gear with drinking, even over christmas, spoke to josiah & grace while playing the piano, got a nice little something going that comes from a slightly mathematical place...

and i finished saramago's The History of the Seige of Lisbon on the train here, lovely, absolutely stunning in parts, i've started The Book of Disquiet by fellow portugeuse author Fernando Pessoa, bought for me originally by E, never read all the way through, round two.

x

bach in my ears love in my stomach

no blogging for a little while, had P round for a few days which has been heavenly, she's playing bach's prelude in C major on my fender rhodes as i write this and i feel like a teenager at the prospect of not seeing her for three days as i go home for christmas,

we went to see die family schneider on wednesday night, freaked us out a fair bit, propelled us into londons early evening, quite magical strolling from whitechapel, through the barbican and it's highwalks, eventually to chancery lane, a church that i love, (the one that used to have a piano), we didn't go into the beautiful lower chapel, there was an office party in full swing, just loitered a little round the edges,

just recorded angels egg by gong into my computer so i can return the vinyl to my brother, spent hours last night watching spaced for a similar reason,

will be late as ever catching the train home, must get out fairly soon,

x

spaced glee harmonic experience

when i visited my brother on friday night i borrowed a few things, a gong album called angels egg and both series of spaced on DVD, which i started to watch tonight when i got in from the pub, where i was meeting D, finally we managed to meet after three cancellations (one his, two mine).

spaced is fantastic. such glee it gives me, i hope i'm going to get to watch both DVD's before christmas when i see him again, then maybe find a way to see shaun of the dead after that.

really nice to see D, his cancellation (the first) was the impetus for me to invite out P, i bought him a pint for that. he told me about an interesting take on music education by this guy Bill Mat... something, french guy... found this on the internet:

The rules of music -- including counterpoint and harmony -- were not formed in our brains but in the resonance chambers of our bodies.
~ William Allaudin (W.A.) Mathieu, Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony From Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression (1997).

so that's pretty interesting, the book looks really expensive ($50) but as P pointed out to me in the 99p shop, it's not that these things are cheap, it's that the pound is strong. $50 is about £25 at the moment.

third of a century

coming back today i was looking through my pictures on my phone, tracing what day i'd taken them, tracing in my brain the history of this brief romance i'm currently involved in... brief being what it is now, but not necessarily what it will become...

i was coming back to london after seeing my brother D, his 33 & a 3rd birthday party, a third of a century, with his girlfriend M turning a quarter of a century in less than a month, we also saw the incredibles this morning which meant getting up earlier than i would of, still short on sleep, the film that much more affecting therefore, shed a few tears as animated superheroes risked life and limn, very moonraker in places, very good.

the party last night was lovely, i'd picked up a few long playing records on my way out of here on friday morning, a strange selection but one that proved pretty appropriate in the end, even got three sinatra tunes in there from only the lonely, as well as john martyn and of course portishead, van the man also showed his face from my bag.

turned out to be really couply, all of D's friends in couples who were there, me with no tall, dark beauty on my arm, she's on her way here now i hope...

just really nice time to be had it was, good talking, good music, added to which i finished work yesterday, i ran up to leamington spa immediately afterwards so it still hasn't really sunk in but it's there in the back of my mind...

so tonight we're going to see the last night of love & understanding, see my handiwork put to use, all the work that everyone has done to make it a groovy little thing, i'm really looking forward to completely being in the audience with no responsibility, and also to being out with P, possible dancing opportunity after (& she loves to dance), possibly seeing B before - the director of bash, although the matinee just finished and i doubt he'll hang around that long,...

anyway, glad to be home, can't wait to see my lover...

x

portishead vinyl poetry

essays marked provisionally, awaiting moderation phone call with my fellow teacher, listening to Roads by portishead which so kills me, always has...

spent a delicious morning with P lounging around listening to this whole album (dummy) for the first time in ages, considering emailing portishead and asking them if they'll do a gig for us, just us if necessary... at the same time showed her On The Mountain by Thomas Bernard, which i bought on the same day i bought this album years back when i was living at home with my family, around the time my dad retired... last night we'd spent some time reading poetry, she'd found a copy of poems on the undergound on my bookshelf that i didn't know i had, finding all those poems that have struck me over the years... so today, lying in bed, both reading from the Thomas Bernard book, how great it is still, she really dug it, how much does that please me?

listening to vinyl, so many records i've been yearning for, moondance by van morrison has been eluding me for a couple of days since i plugged the record player in again, wanted it ever since i saw that episode of The Sopranos with that tune in it...

x

very briefly

about to get down to round two of marking essays, but aside from that i am free, free of the play, all that effort and time and now it's running all on it's own, met with C yesterday, the operator they found right at the last minute, took him through the doings, my music, my sounds, (well, some of them were mine), and the opening night was last night, i'm going with P on saturday night,

P, finally she has a name here in this blog, maybe she had one before but she's been her, she, beautiful woman for awhile, a week and a half and now she's P, (she is soooo lovely)...

anyway, later, when i've marked these essays...

x

folly

just about to find out if what i'm doing now is a waste of time, i'm going to be very short on sleep tomorrow, pretty short on sleep today but i'm getting better at sleeping with my lover which is a skill that i often forget.

we had the tech rehearsal for the play today, when i could have been hanging out with her, these things demand time from us and i guess i'm glad of it, what am i saying of course i'm glad of it, it stretches my skills... that's always a good thing,

the river sound i recorded was not appropriate for one of the scenes that it's needed for so i've been eq'ing it and chopping it up and messing with it until it works, this thing i'm doing now i realise i've miscalculated slightly so i'm redoing it now...

creating a varied loop of the river thames, all the sounds i (& she, remotely) could find on the internet were not really right...

still got a fair bit of work to do even when this river is done,

i guess i'll be in bed by 4 (well i hope so),

up at 7:30, that'll be 3 and a half hours sleep...

and i could have saved myself some time by doing that differently,... oh well, always the way, when you need to be getting on quickly because you need your sleep you are befuddled by sleep deprivation, the name of several of my tunes of yesteryear...

was due to be meeting D the D tomorrow night, having cancelled him last week to spend time with her, him having cancelled me the week before which was the impetus for me to ask her out for a drink, tomorrow night i've been roped into more stuff for the play so a genuine excuse... maybe i'll see him before the year is out, next monday is currently our plan.

funnily enough, the event which named him D the D was a band rehearsal that S in this play was at, she being one of the singers in that band all those years ago... odd how these thing loop wierdly...

anyway, more work calls,

x

multitasking even though i'm a man

after work today i went down to the river and it was lowtide fortunately,

having finished the music for the show i've turned my last minute attention to the sound effects that i've reluctantly taken on organising, it was reluctant but please don't think that i didn't love doing what i did earlier tonight,

i'm listening to it now as i record it into my computer, 5 minutes left of this particular session, me wandering about with my microphone pointed at the water, left my hand really cold.

i think i got what i needed but it's hard to say at this point,

i'm also messaging with her and playing chess with her, answering text messages on and adhoc basis.... ooo this bit with those dogs in the distance, or one dog being echoed...

i so love that world down by the water, i so love evoking that world now by listening to the recording i made, it is for a specific purpose in the play but just for my pleasure and possible future creativity with sound...

normalising now,

this beautiful woman who i'm playing at chess is a little sick so we're communicating over the internet instead of her being right here so i'm slightly sad, in that way that you value every second of being together in this exciting time, but it's also good to be apart tonight, gives me time to work on these sounds...

this blessed time though, the excitement of the first week...

x

not now kato

so i went to overtones to record the music for love & understanding and it's all done now, i still have to find sound effects and work out how all that is going to work but the music is down, in fact i've just reminded myself of it and i'm amazed i haven't been listening to it... of course i've put it on now, this dreamy improvised introduction,...

F engineered for me and she is fantastic, so sweet, really pleased to have her back in my life, i hope to do more work there, beautiful piano, the dog kato was an endearing presence.

shared my day off yesterday with... couldn't have made me any happier.

x

smooth ride

anything but for me recently, haven't caught up on my sleep yet after my horrendous thursday night / friday,

it's been beautiful though,

a warm breath from a beautiful person is on my skin and i'm lucky.

on sunday i went to waitrose.

on sunday a few things happened but that allusion above is all you're getting beyond waitrose.

my shopping trolley was a real smooth ride.

i felt like i was about 10, or maybe 15, i glided through the shelves as they emptied, i gracefully wove my way through the just before closing madness, it was like i was in crouching tiger hidden dragon, all that wire stuff, characters wafting through the air, putting my weight on my hands and floating down the aisles...

it was a point of stillness within the wirlwind of my weekend...

so now i'm going to bed and catch up on my much needed...

(she's so nice)

x

action shot from the day before me & P began 

snapshot

grace is asleep in my bed, her mum is arriving sometime around 4am now,

i've been instant messenging with this lovely new friend for hours and hours and hours, now we're playing chess,

i'm a little ill, spent two nights ago awake all night, throwing up, alcohol related but not only that, triggered by 2 3rds of a pint of guinness on thursday night after sitting for several hours in a cold, cold theatre watching the first run through of the play,

got chatting to an illustrator on the tube home who had the pleasure of watching me fall into sickness,

both nights before that i'd been drinking, not really eating properly, but still, it was over and above the punishment i deserved, i reckon i've got some further thing weighing me down,

another run tomorrow, got much to do about the writing which should be over by wednesday,

not eating right yet but intend to rectify, sat in the amazon with grace this afternoon and i couldn't eat my usual...? very odd, although of course i'm hungry now, in the middle of the night with my 15 month old goddaughter asleep in my bed...

x

the gift of sight

so i went out into the world with my 7-year old glasses on, and here i am back at home with my brand new glasses on..

new prescription which means i can see EVERYTHING, it's damn kookie.

it was a beautiful day as well, i left it a bit late, which meant that by the time i had these on the daylight was already fading, i got a bus full of schoolkids doing their rebellious thing, up to my landlords, had a sort of an argument with work who phoned about something to do with tomorrows lesson, something about their wording made me feel angry... so i arrived at my landlords a bit riled...

i sat down at the piano still thinking about it, started playing, gradually surfaced to find myself playing some really nice chords, i stayed with it awhile and i got a lovely, lovely thing started, simple, building.

lovely

x

slow day ahead of me, a luxury i like

got drunk again last night, mojito's this time, work christmas do, terrible vegetarian food, nice time,

the saramago book is gradually becoming great, the other one i read by him blathazar and blimunda was good, great in places,

i may go round to my landlords to play his piano, i need to shift a few things in the music for the play which i'm going to see a run of tonight,

also i've been thinking alot about recording the 4-piece, i spoke to S the other day after a long, long run of answerphone tennis spreading over 2 months, i'd done a session for her track back in... i don't know maybe may? i'm getting a vinyl copy of that track in the post soon, the artist name is Tominaga i think.

she mentioned to me that overtones studio have a lovely grand piano and they're pretty cheap, this in relation to the solo piano theatre music, then we started to talk about the 4-piece slotting ideas in and out of it... it would be tricky in there but possible,

then two conversations last night at the work do, one at the end with E, who was the voice and sax player all those months back @ this jam session, she reminded me about the LMC's studio down in brixton, they have a steinway grand piano, it would be about recording it all together i guess but possible.

the other conversation was with G the technology tutor, he's just bought a mobile studio setup and he wants to check it out so i suggested the 4-piece as a little recording project, we'd take the stuff over to my landlords probably and do it there. he has 8 inputs possible easily, if we have 2 mics getting the overall sound, then 2 mics on the piano, 1 from everyone else, (including voice).... we've tentativley set a date for early febuary.

he's committed to doing at least one track, so i'd record harbour walls first,..

hmmmmm, just thinking about it,

but i have to get the band rolling again for that to happen, and it would be really great to get a performance in before any recording to get us tighter, i haven't got that band together for awhile now, still a few things i need to resolve, this is another impetus for that.

lovely to see josiah & grace yesterday, grace came round for a little while so that her mum could go and sort some stuff out. i sang her harbour walls again which is great, the verse being very akin to the song i sing to her, origin of my wa ha name. she can now go up and DOWN stairs, also she stands without support every now and again, although i didn't witness it too much i'll no doubt see a whole lot more when i have her on saturday.

x

no drink then drink

so i was supposed to meet with D tonight after teaching but after my class i checked my phone and there were a couple of messages from him bailing out, feeling rough... left me a little disappointed as i went to the tube, had loads of messages on my phone which i was listening too as i went underground, borough station has an obscure property that there is mobile phone connection even at the level of the platforms (if you're close enough to the lift),

i heard a train go as i was listening to a long message from the director, i got to the platform eventually and it seemed there was a long wait in order...

got out the history of the seige of lisbon by jose saramago which had confused me somewhat when i read the opening chapter this morning, about to get into it when...

P walks up, strange actually because this was exactly where we met by accident last week, (julio cortazar would love us), we journeyed north together and had a drink, had several drinks...

very nice,

missed my stop on my busride home as i was actually getting into the book, meeting with josiah tomorrow, gonna see my goddaughter, bed calls, bombay sapphire gin ladies and gentlemen, bombay sapphire gin...

x

nearing the end of the light today as i walked home reading the end of wild life 

wild life beautiful skies rubbish 24

just finished wildlife by richard ford, finished at my kitchen table but was nearing the end whilst i was walking back from the amazon taking pictures of the beautiful sky, shame my old camera's got grit on it, this camera in my phone just doesn't do light well enough,

You get carried away with how things were once, and not how you need to make them better

father to his son in this richard ford book, resonates with me now,

about to watch another episode of 24, third series, it's got that guy from buffy in it, although tough on him to have been in buffy after it was great and now 24 well after it was great.

my brother sorting me out with good telly, or even barely keeping my interest telly, sooooo much better watching six feet under, or the sopranos...

got up after little sleep and made it to the school on time, the day had the makings of a great day as i was walking to the tube @ 8 this morning, found myself singing it's gonna be a... glorious day (radiohead), really feel much lighter after late night conversation i had with E last night, made me angry at the time, but lighter, a resolution i'd been hoping for for months...

met with the director, handed over the 1st draft, my haphazardness matching his, he dropped me off right by my favourite bookshop in brixton, broused for awhile, enjoying looking at all the writers i like even though i bought nothing, can't think of the word but... it's a little like irrigated, feeling... like water that is fizzy, the bubbles rising up through me, just seeing these names, putting me back on my path in relation to buying books, would have bought celine if they'd had him.

overheard a woman asking after books about women pirates, networked a little and got her number for the woman pirate i live with,

x

maybe 4 hours now

insomnia, but self inflicted because of these odd sleep patterns i allow to happen,

oh well, just 4 hours teaching, & i can pull that out of my weary self tomorrow,

4 hours sleep, then 4 hours teaching, seems fair x

1st draft done

handing it over to the director tomorrow,

not bad, not perfect & far from finished but good for now,

just need to get a clear way forward from here to the finished product,

what did i learn from this process of getting it to this stage?

in terms of the composition,
in terms of technicalities of recording,

hmmmm... much to ponder,

5 - 6 hours sleep ahead of me at the most, i will be a little shaky tomorrow, first time with year 8 music students in the school,... oh well, i'll be fine..

x

composition

nearing the first deadline for this thing, an early version by monday, still writing it, some of it is going to be fairly improvised, some heavily structured, working right now on a piece right at the heart of the dramatic action, the central moment in the play, i by turns hate it and love it,

i'm so frustrated with my fingers, not being able to play whatever i decide on at any given moment, the ability to play my composition lagging behind my writing, always will be the case, should be using my pc to program the bits i can't play but i would so love to be able to just think, hmmmmm... maybe ... this, and just play it...

like the music for bash, my first foray into theatre composing, i was writing the music right up to the edge of recording it, in the end i couldn't play the final piece all in one go, glued it all together in the pc, which came out fine,...

timing, waves

began wildlife by richard ford today, still in the first few pages not yet possessed by it but it will get me... the beekeeper was frankly disappointing, snow is worth reading by that guy but the other two...?

had a tricky morning, i was sat in the cafe at lunch feeling pretty rough when E phoned me, and i had absolutely nothing to give to her. bad time to answer my phone, now i've left her annoyed & agrieved with me...

then bizaarely the afternoon session found me much lighter, just about to teach a piano lesson now...

x

composition process

very up & down day,

spent £200 on a new pair of glasses which i'll see next week, that will be great, my present pair is several years old, in fact i was living in kensal rise back then so it must be... 2 years here, 2 years subletting, 2 - 3 years in stamford hill... 7 years ago?

i remember it well, the man in the opticions let me take potential frames home to show my friends and he let me pay it off over three months,

this spend today scares me a bit, i'm not going to get my filling redone just yet, maybe next pay check...

a word on books, i finished night of the hunter two nights ago, it was lovely, all that stuff in the end of the film about children abiding which comes across heavy handed, in the book it is lovely, really emotional as i went to sleep, (unplugged my phone charger in my sleep, continuation of dream wierdness),

picked up snow by maxence fermine in the morning and finished it in top nosh, went home for the second in the trilogy the black violin which i finished this morning in bed, into the third one now the beekeeper...

snow was lovely and perfect for my post night of the hunter state, but the black violin slightly disappointed, perhaps because i started it so quickly after snow, the beekeeper is longer and i'm reserving judgement untill i finish it, but it's a strange thing because i can't wait to read one of the two i bought on saturday & i'm normally more respectful of books than this, giving them their proper weight and timing...

i plugged in my keyboard and my piano module to my computer tonight and i've been recording versions of the music to love & understanding, met with the director yesterday and played him the music for the first time, positive response thankfully, i don't know.. this process gets me down easily but right now, with all my first versions down, albeit scrappy in places it just takes on a whole new reality and i'm liking it again...

E phoned, i was very far back from the conversation, since i was so down on sunday after she blew me out i'm very cautious about her right now,

parts of tonight felt as bad as sunday, although i'm alright now... phoned josiah & grace to get a lift but it didn't really work, does it ever when you need it to? strange times...

x

from inside 

messy picture of.. 

top noshed for the last time

saw the owner, thanked him for great falafel over the years, at least i'll walk out of here on my own two feet, he told me, i ate the falafel, drank the tea which always retains some taste of spice after the falafel,

i finished the book i was reading snow by maxence fermine, the first of a trilogy of novellas i've borrowed from sp, (i finished the second one when i woke up today, the top nosh experience was yesterday), decided i had to go home to pick up another book, i had not much time before i was teaching in the evening, i got up to pay and speak to the owner once more, then on my way back to my table to get my coat i saw...

steve noble, who i blogged only recently as the drummer who was accompanying the cabinet of dr caligari when i saw it for the first time, he reminded me it was elton dean playing sax with him that day, he said he'd seen someone from my college only the other day, he'd been in a drum shop that's closing down just round the corner from us and ramjac and M R had walked in, nice to close the loop with your college he said, meeting me being the closing coincidence,

i told him top nosh was shutting, we spoke about other local cafes, told him about the lebanese place on leather lane, he told me about a new vegetarian thai place on leather lane... nice, great player,

odd/nice to have that coincidence on my last visit there.

x

late afternoon light from three weeks ago x 

balthazara basking in the light of my halogen heater beside my mixing desk which i knocked over in my sleep last night as i walked over to the window, woke up very confused / anxious looking out at the street, stumbled back to bed x 

my tongue is a cat

whenever i change something in my room, my cat balthazara spends a while checking it out, the new configuration, brushing up against edges, pushing the side of her face against things to secrete that my territory stuff on it.

now i've got this huge hole in one of my back teeth my tongue cannot resist checking it out, rubbing up against it, feeling the edges...

my tongue is a cat (and a long one at that),

balthazara just pleased me immensely by sitting in the doorway of the room i was playing piano in while i sang through most of my current songs and most of the rest of the house were downstairs turning up the stereo notch by notch.

a few things coincided today to put me in a raw place, hence the need to sing my stuff, was meant to meet E but she blew me out, spending the afternoon instead with my flatmate dr K & others, i hate that that annoys me but you know what? it does annoy me, spent the day instead working on the music to love & understanding, the writer of which, joe penhall, adapted the novel enduring love for the film which has just come out and has that guy from layercake in it.

curiously frustrating this writing for this play... getting somewhere but i don't know that i like where i'm getting...

shaved today, of note only because i realise that i'm shaving once a week at the moment, so for example my friday students always see me with the same level of stubble... as i was looking through my drawer for new razors i found some new contact lenses... i'm just about to switch to a new kind, if i knew i had these i would've held off... anyway, scatterbrain that i am, i'll hold off the new kind for a month, even though this kind starve my eyes of oxygen... (so my optician told me)..

x

bluetoothed up & a-quiverin' with cleanness non blue teeth falling out

this here picture of brighton old pier with skylarks flocking in amazing ways above it was taken on my phone, i now have the power to transfer from my phone to my pc, and onwards to the internet.

all bluetoothed up i am and proud of it,

got the bluetooth dongle from a computer fair today, would have been £30 in a shop, got it for £17,

managed to get through £80 in a just got paidfrenzy today, wired off £30 to josiah, bought 2 books, the dongle, some blank DVD's, food, catfood...

an epic trip into town it was, got off the tube @ russell square where the budgens has metamorphasised into a tesco metro (wierd), walked over to tottenham court road, further even, got a little lost finding the computer fair but found it in the end, then straight south to oxford street, into soho and over to charing cross road for foyles bookshop, a few stops on the central line to chancery lane then a walk up to top nosh for the best falafel on town (not for much longer), then walk back to russell square and home, blisters on my feet by the time i got home, only a half hour or so here before i was out again going to a gig in st pancras old church, but more on that later.

i've been lusting after buying a book all week, borrowing books has been great but i've really felt the need for my own path again, i bought wildlife by richard ford & the history of the seige of lisbon by jose saramago, both in the harvill press, i've got the rest of night of the hunter and then maybe these three novellas by maxence fermine before i can read either of them, it is so delicious this kind of waiting, they are going to be great, i can feel it.

night of the hunter is great, i've really warmed to it, it's always the same with a new writer, it takes me a little while to get with the style, two lines have really struck me that i remember from the film, one of which i'll record here:

I feel clean now, Icey. My whole body's just a-quiverin' with cleanness.

which i so loved in the film, willa harper sets her mind at rest about the preachers intentions towards her...

the edgy nature of the book, the imagery, it's great.

top nosh i've mentioned before, turns out they are shutting at the end of the month as i knew, but not reopening, must go in there again next week to see the owner, thank him for his great falafel.

for a while now i've been feeling one of my back teeth with my tongue, maybe a month or so, i've noticed ridges in it which feel odd, just now, since posting, feeling there with my tongue and out comes this lump of metal, a filling, my only filling in fact, i didn't realise the ridgy tooth was that one, so now i'm all gappy at the back there... feels kind of fascinating in there now...

so this gig, belgian R, grat violinist that i worked with for one gig, in this church that's been there (or at least there's been a church on that site) for 1600 years, great gig, although i felt a little distant from it, maybe because i was wearing glasses...?

x

my filling with the book, bluetoothed in just now 

brighton old pier with skylarks 

bukowski gone

very tired now, worked all day on little sleep, both me & my fellow teacher a little ratty through tiredness, sang harbour walls to my students & got a good response, still improvising many of the lyrics although the hackney lyrics are still there...

finished women by charles bukowski before i went out last night to see my sister K & her new place, a little like the sexual life of catherine m or thomas bernard in it's intensity, a strange celebration of women mixed with the odd misogynist remark, a tumult of words that left me feeling flooded & at peace.

a while ago in a series on tv made by jon ronson, a white supremacist lets his liberal facade slip for a moment while discussing with a fellow racist about whether the oriental woman they've just been talking to is a high yellow. wierd to read the same lingo on the lips of bukowski's protagonist in an airport bar near the end of the book, bukowski mentions the celine book journey to the end of the night which i'd like to read, somehow my impression of celine is tinged with dodgy beliefs... i have no idea why,.. then there's the elderly knut hamson, (also talked about in women) who, close to death, allows his name to be linked with the nazi's...

writers i love who carry the bullshit of the time they were part of...

so now i'm reading night of the hunter by.. i can't think of his name right now, the book that was made into that robert mitchum film, very scary film, robert mitchum menacing as anything, the film appears to be very close to the book so i'm finding it a little dull right now, the film very clear in my head, but i've been so tired since i've started reading it i haven't really been in the right space.

got paid today, ordering some food, then my richly deserved bed,

strange state i'm in these days, not uncommon, weather in london hideous today...

x

day after party six feet under bliss

so i went to that party last night, very tired at the end of my week but i went, as if i could possibly have not gone,

as soon as i arrived i sat down & played the skryabin to F, whose party it was, they turned off the sound system for me. didn't play it perfectly, in fact by the time i'd finished F had wandered off so i went into something else improvised, came back to bits of skryabin a few times then played the whole piece again, lovely piano, returned to many, many times through the night, alone or with others, always playing barely audibly against the sound system,

had a lovely night, sad to see the last of F for a while, odd that i see her so infrequently but she is so important to me, although that does happen with all kinds of people i guess, standing @ hackney wick train station waiting for my train home @ 6 am i wrote some of another verse to harbour walls, i'd like to finish it soon & then do a tiny recital of it with the skryabin in my house, just to the inmates... what with josiah & grace more removed now & F headed off, godmaG already gone, (her shadow so haunted the party last night), i have quite enough leaving to draw on, it's just how do the midparts develope from the verses?

a man took a fancy to me & announced his intentions by shouting that man's staring at my crotch and pointing at me, reminds me now of the first day i ever ran a session in a learning difficulties day centre and was quite pleased with how well it had gone until this guy in a headbrace started pointing to me & yelling that mans giving me an headache, formative scary teaching moment...

my brother has come through and today in my slightly ragged state i watched the first of the four remaining episodes of six feet under, and what a wonder it was, just how great can tv be sometimes....

off out now to see the pigs... x

skryabin saps my strength

but i at least know all the notes now, can't play it every time but i'm close,

energy levels is a strange old thing, lack of money & the effect that has on my diet is partly to blame but i realise also that the energy i'm putting into this skryabin tune does indeed take it out of me, particularly in this well the party is tomorrow night and time is PRECIOUS mode of working, but maybe that's also to do with just how hard these last few sections are, not the very last bit which i've now got under my fingers but the REALLY achingly beautiful bits just before that, soooooooo hard, maybe there's no way to learn really hard music that isn't hard, hard work.

the London Review of Books continues to be great, since the bunuel book i'm back in LRB limbo, in the last interview with Edward Said he talks about a book project he's working on on late style, an essay on this by him appears in one of the LRB back issues i've got, i read it yesterday & it covers several writers that i love, the leopard by Lampedusa, C. P. Cavafy the poet... but i found it hard to read, he is hard to read sometimes, but also i don't know if he himself prepared it for publication, coming out after he died as it did...? then again i might have another go at it with a clearer head one day.

on a thursdays i run a module on a course along with another teacher, roughly split between us but i ended up teaching a little more than him this time, the module is split into two, the first half teaching various different musical theories, ideas, compositional tools... the second half getting them into groups and letting go off and write some music. the first half of this module ended today. i was responsible for the music harmony side of things, my coteacher more for the rhythmical stuff. breaking down all that i teach when i teach music theory into 3/4 lessons has been tricky, always will be tricky. anyway ended today, kind of glad to see it gone, good though it was...

x

day out piano moment skylarks

took a coach to see josiah & grace, coach travel, cheaper, more boring than train travel, well, maybe not strictly true but longer that's for sure,

@ some point had a magical - oh look that's what we were looking for, just in the nick of time - moment with the cooperative bank, wandering through the town...

had some lovely time with grace, some lovely time with her mum, was a cold day and i spent a little too much time outside but that was the deal. the first of many visits...

just briefly, the piano.

when i got there josiah was not around, it took her awhile to get to me, i was right by a church so i went in, out of the cold.

i put down my bags near the door and explored, there was a woman cleaning, i went to go & talk to her but i saw someone else resting in a pew & thought better of it for some reason.

after awhile i found the piano, found two pianos actually, but sat @ the grand, an ofenbach, kind of plinky if thats a word but i got into it, nice really.

i played through the skryabin piece as far as i've got, not very well, i haven't really got the last bit yet, that's what i wanted to do, practise, but i was conscious of the bags near the door, so i got up from the piano, walked through the central altary bit, setting of brief alarms as i went, got the bags and brought them back to the piano, this time i set off an alarm as i sat @ the piano...

the church warden i guess came and spoke to me, out of the depths of the backstage of the church, very much not into me playing the piano, property, i tried to persuade her of how beautiful it would be but she wasn't having it, edge tonight as i was telling the story pointed out how it was my fear of my bags being stolen that made me move and set off the alarms that they set up to stop people stealing from them, had i trusted in the christian nature of the inhabitants of that church i could have just played that piano to my hearts content,

part of the joy of today was josiahs joy @ finding things in her new town, @ some point we were watching skylarks, thousands of them, rearranging themselves into more & more complex patterns, such precise edges, josiah likening it to a movement grace used to do with her hand...

x

autumn the sopranos

autumn is a season for both depression & hope, something i've been saying to a few people and it sure is true,

watched the last two episodes of the sopranos today, one when i woke up, the other just now, this last one had glad tidings by van morrison playing through it, just how great is that?

i am really going to miss the sopranos, such great telly...

and when my brother finally gets it going i will have the last 4 episodes of six feet under to feast upon, then maybe i'll start watching this 3rd series of 24, but it's no real comfort, six feet under & the sopranos are leagues ahead...

now what i really want is that dvd of seinfeld that's just come out in this country, how deliriously happy would that make me?

taught my notation class tonight, taught it well i think, played through bach's prelude in c major while my class followed the score and shouted out the dynamics ("pianissimo"), struggling with skryabin as ever at the moment, makes me feel a certain nervous giddy feeling, so close to being able to play it... i may not be able to play a piano at all tomorrow...

i finished the bunuel book on the tube home, had to wait 30 minutes for my first train, somehow was in a very dark patch for awhile, like i say, this season suits both ups and downs, going to see josiah & grace tomorrow, up early to catch a bus... she'd love to hear that van morrison tune, maybe i'll put it onto a minidisk so we can listen to it, went round to hers to get some essentials she'd overlooked in her very speedy departure...

and my sister safely in her new place too, can't wait to go see it, maybe doing an orange wednesday thing next week,

oh the sopranos, what am i going to do without you?

x

found some of my scribble on a piece of paper from 9 months back

This from 3/02/04, 9 months ago, curiously reflected in current events…:

it’s a sad thing to say goodbye,

as we left, godmaG & i from the college tonight, something had clearly happened, police had cordoned off a huge area, flashing lights, traffic cones, uniforms stood about,
- just what it was is not clear,

skryabin playing really loud,

- maybe i was transported to another time, ten years ago – exactly this version, - that feeling that i gave a lesson that didn’t quite hit the mark – and then no conversation with K after – kind of also an absence on my part? – at least in wanting that, - rare to be not fussed, but then as we left – g & i, suddenly covered in a blanket of snow, - almost as though i’d buried my feelings & then found myself buried,
as i left g @ the busstop the thought that my waking up from this dream – waking up with that unpleasant feeling i get when i wake up from sleep walking (moving) – maybe this shift in my emotions – registered so large on the local map – the police had to cordon off the whole area..

because on Sunday, as i sat in the royal festival hall after watching The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, i was struck by a blues, a real low moment. i was reminded of times when i’ve been closing something, like the times i used to have so many of when i would sweetly obsess about someone, then realise nothing was going to happen, dreaming as i’m wont to do, sometimes dreaming of someone else to mask the real hurt about losing someone, being amazed how well i’m doing, only to wake up after this flirtation has ended feeling as shit as i should have felt all along.

so the night before i’d been to her house, she who i’d once been so taken with, the same she who is featured in this thing from 9 months back, i’d seen her with her boyfriend & for the first time really accepted it, and was happy for them. on the way i still wondered whether she would be with him, still kept a part of that dream alive, now that dream is really dead, and this low i felt maybe the mourning for that dream…?

E phoned around midnight tonight, she's off to Thailand for a spa treatment and thought her flight was tomorrow morning whereas really it was this morning (well, yesterday morning now, monday), our first conversation for ages, me a little distant, but i told her what i needed to tell her, not in a rush to see her but i guess we'll meet when she gets back from thailand..

M & her mum going to hampstead heath tomorrow, i'm not working until the night, hoping to get more of this skryabin tune under my belt, would like to play it @ F's do on friday night (obscure though that will be).

spoke for awhile with josiah tonight, going over there on wednesday, grace apparently looked @ her mum today and said Wa Ha?, makes me smile in that breaking my heart kind of way... x

early cinema surviving on coins new theatre thing

once over the initial shock of having very little money until next thursday i realise that i kind of like it, G's pot of money is still there, he's happy for me to spend it (it seems), even suggested a way of converting it to paper money, tomorrow is my day to check that out, the thing is i like that it is just a pot of money, it takes me awhile to spend change, it takes me no time at all to spend notes...

so i went to manolis's, stocked up on loo roll, went to the pictures & spent time in a pub in chiswick, all while spending only change, which is an obscure pleasure but a pleasure none the less.

manolis announced that he was learning how to read music from me, in exchange for greek lessons, i love that, the oddness of it, and who knows maybe one day we'll be struggling over each others teachings one day...

loo roll, 18 for the price of 12, recycled.

the film was the cabinet of dr caligari, made in 1919, i'd seen it once before with two improvisers providing the accompaniment, steve noble and ... the sax player he used to play with, maybe also a steve, this time it was accompanied by andrew youdell on the piano, skryabin-esque in places, he said the only direct quote was abit of brahms, really moved me, the images with the music, such an ideal job for me, i checked it out awhile back, must get on it again, put my learning this skryabin piece in a context...

and then on to chiswick to meet with actors, director, lighting, producer of this play love and understanding that i'm going to write the music for. my initial reaction (this was a read through) not as strong as my reaction to bash but very glad to be working in this field again, S & B, old friends from university who i saw at D & H's wedding are in it & are my contact with it...

and now i'm still a touch drunk, no work tomorrow thankfully, heading bedward.

x

bunuel skryabin search & reflect

it's been a mad week of work, intensive search & reflect workshops that i ran with another teacher, really good but hard, hard work.

then in the modst of it josiah left london, leaving a hole in my heart, i'll still see them but no immediate access to my beautiful goddaughter...

glad it was search & reflect i was teaching, gave me strength through the upset,

i was great (when i was great).

E has been in touch, haven't spoken but it's a beginning, feel a bit ambivilant about it but at least she's reaching out...

playing more of skryabins 4th sonata, tricky but soooo beautiful, about half way through what i want ot achieve now....

lovely to relax on a saturday after a hard week, fireworks tonight @ allexandra palace then maybe a party...

oh and M has lent me this memoir by Bunuel, the director, it's great, it was puplished around the same time that prisoner of love, genet's memoir was published - 83/84 both bunuel & genet dying just before publication... great, great, great..

x

what a day

if i go to bed real soon i'll get 5 or 6 hours of sleep, teaching some familiar pieces tomorrow so i should be ok, arnica close at hand, hit my also familiar wall (money) yesterday, really got me down, such a shock, why didn't i reach straight for the arnica?

so very briefly:

got to the station just as my train was pulling in, decided to wait for the next one & enjoy a croissant & a chat with sam... the next train delayed (of course), a man i recognised wheels his bike into the station, buys his ticket, it's been ten years (roughly), had i caught that first train...

he recognises me too, (my hair not dissimilar from back then), we chat, trade numbers... trumpeter... hmmm?

then later i read in the book (house book, can't believe i haven't mentioned it before), that C is moving out, i guess she could yet change her mind but that's pretty large,

then later i hear from my dear friend that she's really moving, and she's really moving tomorrow...

shit & death people, what a day,

lovely to chat with M @ the kitchen table just now, i'm in shock... why haven't i reached for the arnica?

x

out there

just finished capital by maureen duffy, letting it sit there for awhile in my head, experimental right up to the end, the narrative broken up by pieces representing various different bits of londons history, listening to dirk wears white socks, the first album by adam & the ants earlier while i helped spski cook a house meal for dr K's birthday, released in '78, speaking of a london not dissimilar from that of this novel...

went out to buy figs earlier, a worker from the fruit shop had just been involved in a motorcycle accident on seven sisters road, paramedics, police, onlookers, the desire to take pictures suppressed because of sensibility, walking up salterton road after, images running at me to take them, getting further from the scene of the crash, eventually giving in to take pictures of these two trees, the very tops of which bathed in the late light, last night with this time, British Summer Time ends tonight, gaining an hours sleep.

saw spanna last night, lovely to see her and chill out, this after me & M from work had drunk abit & checked out the sound installation in the tate modern turbine hall, interesting, will have to go back and check it out, can't help feel that more could have been done with it in terms of sound...

spanna telling me i can get a bluetooth dongle to plug into my usb, phone pictures then making it into my computer... not long kids, not long...

& then just a word about these angry resentful fantasies that are keeping me awake at night, always with me in the wronged, angry role, righteuos... not sure where's that's coming from, although a few candidates do present themselves... i don't like that side of me, i hate self righteousness in anyone else and i'm none too pleased to see it in me...

x

trees out there 

arnica layer cake network shoplifter nippy

so i'm in a shop today with josiah & grace, josiah returning some rice milk for some that has calcium in it,

a small shop, no room really for a baby buggy, constantly in peoples way...

picked up another tube of arnica,

lovely as ever to see grace... (josiah would hate that, oh, it's lovely to see grace is it? noone ever wants to see her mum anymore...)... lovely to see josiah too...

josiah having an argument at the till, eventually she storms out the calcium rice milk is more expensive so she has to pay something, she's off to get some money.. i ask how much it is, 40p, i pay it, we load up the rice milk in the buggy, we leave, josiah comes back 5 minutes later ranting about customer service.

we walked up to the amazon where i was having breakfast while she & grace went up to crystal to meet nippy & R (R her son, rather than R her partner), (crystal where i met that pickpocket), but before we get to the cafe i find the arnica in my pocket, oh well, i tell josiah, she delighted, funny to be a shoplifter again (that is a very long story - another time).

so i ate my breakfast while they ate lamb, chatted a little with S, fairly recent waitress there, about art, artists, the rent...

then i went up to crystal to hang out with them, nippy & R even came back here, R keen to play me @ chess, for some reason i was less considerate with R today, beat him twice, he was cool though, good for him i guess, but it's hard losing when you're 12,

grace came round for an hour or so, climbing stairs, playing the piano, i played her the skryabin thing, she added her own part to it, (like when i played wild is the wind @ her blessing, but this not a performance so i more than happy to go where she goes...), i also sang her harbour walls at least the verse which is based on a melody i wrote for her, the wa ha song, really moved me singing that to her, she lost interest after the verse but she had that quiet listening for the melody (or at least that's what i'd like to think)...

then me & dr K went to see layercake, she for the second time, 2for1 orange wednesday thing, pretty good, nice to see a quality english film for once, really nice to chill out with dr K, on the way home i wore my brand new reversible fleece reversed, horrible tartanesque pattern on the inside, the one and only time i'm wearing it like that in public, she said it looked like something her dad would wear...

and now here i am setting up the network that links together these computers, well at least mine and this basement one, information courtesy of my brother D, satisfying...

so pretty cool day really, it's 12:23 now, got a little preparation work to do for tomorrow but i should be in bed by 1,... conscious of sleep more now from being so rubbish on tuesday...

x

skryabin

yesterday was a little rough because i didn't sleep enough the night before, sleeping too much when i can and not enough when i need it is really not the way forward, after my evening class i was pretty low & tired, just before i went to bed i found my skryabin cd downstairs (i'd been listening to it cooking the other day) - john ogdon playing all the piano sonatas & a few other bits and pieces...

so i gave myself a little of the 4th piano sonata, so light and beautiful... it's in two halves & the second half is pretty heavy and thunderous but this first part...

so now i'm learning to play it, at least the opening, i'm 8 bars in so far, there is some heavenly high chords played in 4's over the melody in 6 coming up that is going to twist my fingers right up...

so i was lying in bed today, gradually coming round, someone started playing some piano music close to me,... probably edge actually playing the piano i worked out in the end, really nice, lovely shapes... reminded me of the skryabin at least in mood... so i'm lying there feeling all freshly woken & langourous & he (not knowing i was in) went upstairs & started pumping out some breakbeat tune he's working on that just didn't sit so well with where i was at, where his piano playing had put me...

hmmm, anyway, the real world out there...

x

regent street at the end of an alley 

autumn colours reflected in puddle 

london

finished ghost of chance by william burroughs last night in bed so i picked up capital by maureen duffy as i went about my day today.

i'd bought it awhile back but hadn't read it yet, somehow it didn't appeal to me before but then i was reading the london review of books and someone mentioned her name in an article and when i checked that the book had been written in the 70's somehow this appeased me... so anyway i'm reading it, and it seems appropriate to be reading it after ghost of chance, burroughs and duffy seem to share an experimental edge, also the way time is presented in both books...

capital published in '75, almost thirty years ago, walking around london today reading this...

ate in top nosh, absolutely my favourite falafel place in london... anywhere in fact, when i moved to holloway and started going to the amazon cafe i was struck by how good there falafel was, almost as good as top nosh, they being the bench mark.

as i came in the proprietor was looking at a copy of a student newspaper that had named his place as doing the best kebabs, the evening standard had named his falafels the best sometime before he told me.

he also told me that they would be shutting for december, maybe for good, depending on this deal he's working out with the landlord, he said he always wanted to reach 60, see his son through university, pay off the mortgage then he could retire, all these things have now happened so maybe this is good timing... he'd been there 14 years, half the time ago since the novel was published, similar amount of time for the other arabic restaurant that i have always called the lebanese bakery even though they are not lebanese (?) which is round the corner from top nosh.

then i went into regent street and bought a few warm clothes, then back up to home.

all this on this beautiful day, choosing ways around town that allowed me to walk through lovely streets, taking pictures, some of which i'm uploading here...

then tonight i went up to stansted airport to meet josiah & grace off their plane from ireland, nice to be able to take grace off her mum who obviously needs a cigarette and go change her nappy...

lovely to see them, i've missed them since thursday when they left, did i mention before that after spending so long trying to get her to say r.... she now calls me wa ha, uncle wa ha... me & josiah piss ourselves laughing...

x

hangover coffee & cigarettes

went to the last of bash on saturday & consequently had a hideous hangover yesterday.

so drunk & foolish when i got in i didn't drink water before going to bed, basic rule of drinking heavily forgotten.

so yesterday was quite hard at first. one of those nauseous hangover, no headache just a lingering mistrust of your stomach.

me & spski went out to the pictures, beautiful day, made it down to the angel just in time to catch coffee & cigarettes, the new jim jarmusch film. how perfect for a start just the expreience of going to the cinema when hungover, yesterday sudden changes in temperature or movements made me feel terrible, to sit in a darkened room not moving, screen on the green cinema has such comfortable seats... & then what a perfect film to ease me back into humanity. i could easily wacth that film again, made me think of bo - she always used to talk about cooking a meal for her house which was just coffe & cigarettes (and they'll just have to bloody like it won't they?)

x

last night of bash burroughs arnica

saw bash last night & i'm going again tonight - the last night, with D (who doesn't write books about cars) & M (new housemate).

last night it was the pigs, was going to be E as well but she didn't make it, this & other small petty thoughts about my life, tiny grievances, melted into nothing as the play got under way with bo & nash beside me... i went on wednesday too & met the writer Neil Labute albeit briefly.

i was going to go to an enlightened discussion group with the andrew cohen people this afternoon but timing didn't quite work, instead just dealing with a few things i need to deal with, leisurely saturday, lent M my bilingual pablo neruda & borrowed ghost of chance from her, a late burroughs that i haven't read before. i've put this picture up in contrast to the very grey day we're having today out there,...

went out to the amazon for breakfast with spski today, really nice, on the way home i had my hand in my pocket & i could only feel one of the two small cylindrical objects that i always have with me... when i got in i checked and i found that i had my lipsalve but that i did not have my arnica, nowhere @ home either (that i can see)...

exactly four weeks ago today, as i was recording the music to bash, i had a hard time, stress, emotional bruising, i reached for my arnica & i'd left it @ home. strange to be without something that you know helps you in troubled times. i remember when i bought arnica for the first time (instead of josiah just giving me some every now & again), it was one of those times when me & E were breaking up and i accepted that my life would be hard for a while, this at least a year ago. i forgave myself any mad behaviour that was coming, the kind of bigness of heart that i have towards others sometimes when they are going through stuff, i told it to myself. always have arnica with you...

& now i don't have that kind of trauma going on, i am finding this season a bit hard, not depression as such but a little troubled, so i find myself getting over small troubles almost every day (don't we all) and as i'm accepting that as where i'm @ this autumn i'm not reaching for the arnica, getting more used to dealing with stuff without it,

i just hope i get some more before i have any big upset to deal with...

x

brilliant light & dark shade a few days ago 

old resonance

so my sister saw a poem on the tube which reminded her of me, this prompted me to go to the poems on the underground website and look through a fair few poems, i've only found a way to get to poems from 3 - 4 years ago, i would love to have a look @ poems from further back, poems on the underground has been such a great aspect of my life in this city, my first glimpses of c p cavafy & of pablo neruda came from the tube,...

so browsing through the last few years of poems was quite something, some that i hadn't seen, some that hadn't grabbed me, but the odd one that had touched me, strange how seeing the graphics and the text from a poem on the underground can really evoke that time for me, some isolated poems, then a whole rash of them that i'd been scribbling down on whatever came to hand back then...

listening now to a tune called monk that i wrote years and years ago, maybe the first production of mine that i liked, that felt complete, still not so many of them kicking around, this on a cd i made for one of my classes which i threw these old tracks onto on a whim, this one now i called sol, both titles came from the era of naming things by the name i'd given a sample in my S950, the basic name it gives you is TONE, MONK is a derivation of that, SOL isn't far off, sol based on a recording i made @ the brick lane festival of a street piano, mixed with a sample from bill evans playing solar (the miles davis tune), really lovely listening to old tunes, both of these written since i moved to london, with some poem on the underground resonating in my brain somewhere...

x

tube transport training day behaviour awareness

had a training day at work given by a marvellous disability awareness teacher, although she immediately told us she'd rather it be about behaviour, an amazing analogy later in the day about acting, sometimes you think a certain way to inform your acting (internal to external), sometimes you act a certain way and that feeds your thoughts (external to internal), in the same way, sometimes a shift in our awareness can change our behaviour / language, but sometimes a shift in our language can effect a shift in our thoughts...

amazing light we've had today too, taking lots of pictures with my new phone and with my little camera,

& then i was on the tube coming home, in the last carriage of the victoria line train by the first set of double doors, (which is the best place to get off @ finsbury park), i saw a poem, the long war by laurie lee (curiously with her birth year this time, old style), and i realised i'd noticed exactly the same poem, in exactly the same place on the train a previous day, in fact i'd tried to align it a bit better because one of the top lines was half hidden, i got quite a few funny looks for that, leaning over and tugging at it to no avail, it was definately the same train because the same line was half hidden...

i may start counting how many different trains i encounter on my journeys, always at the same point in them as i am...

(internal tube train spotter)

x

bash audience book done

went to see the play for the fourth time last night, but this time with some of my housemates, i wish i'd started this a bit sooner, only 5 performances left and now i really want more of my friends to see it. it's funny, with a few people i'm slightly hurt that they haven't yet, and almost certainly won't go and see it, which is not really something i'm liking about myself... understandable though it is. in a wider context i see this play now as a very high quality thing and it would be a shame to miss it, quite apart from my connection to it...

the slightly hurt side of things is to do with a wider thing of having shifted down a gear or three in a certain half assed relationship i'm (not) in. once my lover now my friend as fiona apple has it, what a cruel thing to pretend. although for this once my friend then my lover then my friend then my lover then my friend then my lover then my... is more to the point, you'd think i'd be getting used to that shift by now...

i finished jonathon strange & mr norrell the other day, just after my sister as it goes, that was funny, i'd intended to wake up slowly on wednesday morning and finish it, something which made K almost yell in frustration that i was going to beat her to it, which of course made me enjoy that all the more, but then wednesday didn't go like that at all, and she finished on the way home from work, me just before i went to sleep that night, good book. satisfying, i'm in LRB limbo for now, as i can easily be these days with so many back issues lying around.

oh & i guess i want to blog this, from tuesday night, i went round to josiah's for some dinner and to pick up something B had given her for me, she was on the phone when i arrived. she is on the phone alot these days. so i made myself a cup of tea and went into the kitchen to read the book (still in it then), time passed, i got as far as i wanted to in the book, realising i was that close to the end and not wanting to be interrupted in that last stretch, so i checked the clock & josiah had been on the phone since i arrived for 20 minutes... i made my presence felt, fetched the thing that i'd come to get, josiah still talking, eventually @ 25 minutes & by now she's stopped talking (to D - up in scotland) but had started talking to someone else... & i left, josiah surprised, you don't have to go you know, i raised my eyebrows and glinted my eyes slightly and walked out, my annoyance gone by the time i reached mine (4 minutes later), in fact the annoyance of it pretty much entirely balanced by the action of going, of making that point,

i guess it illustrates josiah's ability to talk, how comfortable i am being there and she with having me there, grace long in bed by this time, but we all step over certain lines with our friends and they let us know if they are good enough friends, i'm going round there now in fact.

cedric nash was with us for 5 days or so this week, he's gone now, backpack on his back, going on the European Social Forum march this afternoon then on to heathrow, india. the ESF which i completely failed to get to at all, there was a talk on the myth of zionism this morning that i could have got to, but you know my bed was sooo nice during that meeting,

balthazara being very loving just now with me,

x

absence

been a little while since i last blogged, my life has been disrupted by my friend josiah being hounded by her ex-boyfriend, father of grace, also this weather here in england is getting really cold, time to change my answer phone message, not only that but i forgot to buy cat food in the last couple of days, poor balthazara has been starving,

i'm alright though, very tired now, i'm addicted to this game, it reminds me of a spectrum game that my family used to have...

any way, later kids,

oh, and why don't the poems on the underground have the dates when the poet was born anymore?

x

thankyou G

so maybe you'll think bad of me for this?

i went out into the world to eat something tonight, jai was my chosen venue, even had a lovely conversation with a new friend on the way there, jai shut, so la porchetta got my business, read some of this huge huge book that me & K are reading and ate.

and how did i pay for it?

this is the thing, concerned as i am that i may have trouble lasting til payday i was also tidying my room today in preparation for grace's stay here tomorrow, i came accross a pot that belongs to G, previous occupant of this room. actually 2 whole shelves of this stuff remains here, it's been awhile (a year?) and i may chuck it out one of these days.

anyway the pot, one of those pots many of us have with small change, my pot, (well, i created the pot today, it was a part of my desk) has pennies, twopennies and 5-pence pieces in it, never amounts to much. G's pot however has the aforementioned, plus 10-pence pieces, 20-pence pieces, 50-pence pieces and pound coins!?!

plus francs from a couple of different countries, euros, dollars... plus sundry small items, like yet to be developed film, a magnifying glass (ish), two nail clippers...

well let me tell you that in these (slightly) lean times this is a find. a small amount of expeditionary digging gave me enough for my pizza. just the knowledge that i have that kind of buffer, when my bank says no sir! i can exist for a few days on this pot, also that i have to look for it, it's not just there, i have to sit down and sort...

so thankyou G for your past diligence. who knows, maybe i'll keep a note of it and give it to you back in more minted times...?

i resigned in a match against G a couple of days ago, not like me to do that but it was getting really tricky to move at all, maybe i should have stuck with it and tried for a stalemate... me & G used to play all the time when he lived here, now we play all the time anyway, (thankyou gameknot). i used to have the edge over G, i don't know that i'm losing it necesarily, but he's been beating me a bit recently...

actually cedric nash is seeing G today, cedric nash who appeared behind me this afternoon whilst i was still in my towel, first waking hour of the day making myself a tea, i hear this hmmm behind me & there he stands, with us for 5 days or so he reckons, always nice to see him. just as i'm struggling to complete harbour walls which i started (lyrically) when he was last here.

x

the truth

so i got to meet andrew cohen last night, only to say how much i enjoyed his talk and to tell him a little about my relation to his teaching over the years, he asked if i was coming to the retreat, (which is going on right now), and obviously i'm not at it, bo's birthday celebrations today and anyway i can't afford to spend that much, but i realise that i would really like to do it one day.

he is a spiritual teacher who i was really ckecking out around the time i was leaving university through to when i moved to london a year or so later, at that time i'd been reading books on zen buddhism (& i read my christmas humphreys book on zen) by people like alan watts, also andrew harvey, andrew cohen was who i found at the end of that trail of writing, a living and breathing man. also his teaching seemed (and still does seem) to resonate with certain visionary hallucinogenic experiences i've had.

i had a long day of teaching yesterday, ending up with two of my students collaring me to go through their songs and find accompaniments to them (they're performing in the lesson next week - i performed wild is the wind in the lesson this week), which bothered me in the end because i didn't have much time to get to the talk, in fact i snapped at the last student, (who was taking the piss), so i was in a bothered state, not dissimilar to the state i was in just before i reached my sister on wednesday, in fact i spoke to E today & she told me bo was a little upset about what i said to her about her plans for today, on that day, i told K (sis) that i was annoyed by it but i hadn't wanted to sound so annoyed, anyway, a slightly dark place to be. i saw josiah very briefly, she in the throws of her first whole night without grace, it's hard...

so i got to the talk and got chatting to people, ended up sat next to a woman (L) from america who runs earthaction, she told me her time as an art teacher gave her many of the skills she uses now running this huge organisation. i found that in the early part of the talk i was overcome by sleepiness, even started drifting off in the way where you almost start to dream, in a way i was already dreaming.. but L was taking copious notes and following this i got out my pen and started writing a few things on my hand, that feeling of the point on my skin and of the focussing of my mind allowed me to be more with andrews words, i took off my shoes as well which was amazing...

the talk was great, he reminded me a little of edward said in his ability to create a really big picture and then take you through it.

i found that the whole experience really put me back where i belong, back to who i am. it's almost as if the darker, bothered me actually did fall asleep and my truer self remained.

the question for me now is whether i'm happy to leave it like this, where i go to see this man speak every now again and feel centred by his words even as i'm feeling challenged by them, or whether i want to go deeper into it. back then when i'd just moved to london i was struck by him saying freedom can't be just a hobby, it has to be the most important thing in your life. this along with the fact that i only ever saw andrew cohens books on their shelves made me take a step back, it wasn't the most important thing back then.

x

nippy heard it too

only last week nippy found that same cd (of an old cops gig) and listened to it in her car...

so that's a little bit wierd

x

well it's all very nice today

got a lovely long email and indeed a portion of her journal post from my correspondent, then i went downstairs to cook myself beakfast, something i should do moreof, i'm poorer than i was last year and i can't afford to go to cafe's as much (sadly), so i took down some music to listen to, and it was a recordong of a Hotel Full of Cops gig @ the spitz back in april 2001, late incarnation of the band, nippy on vocals and no N on guitar, the era when J the dj was shuffling further & further off stage with every gig, and you know people? it rocked,

really nice to hear it, 40 minute set, from one of my creations (rare) through J's tracks, one of J's based on my bassline (which i really love, nippy's great on it but beefy used to be soooo great on that track), through to S's more techno-esque tracks, ending with that great drum'n'bass version of inside straight we used to do, nippy coming through really nicely on the later tracks particularly, edge ckecking it out at one point, because nippy recycles so many of her vocals, he's playing the odd gig with her these days and he's stood there checking these lyrics he's familiar with, done in such a rudely different style... nice to hear myself in there, the different sounds i used to use, from the vintage keys and from the nanopiano,.... and then just the pleasure of hearing it when it's particularly working, music that i was a part of, we were a great band, albeit incredibly adhoc.

then i phoned orange, all ready with my line about why they should give me the phone i want for nothing, actually the same phone K has, damn near the same line she used as well, but F, the woman i spoke to, was just alright, there you go, that's fine no argument necessary, whereas earlier this week i'd had (and i forget her name) who was standing firm that with my tariff i would have to pay £29 for that phone,... it's all about who you get people,

several years ago when i started doing my tax return i was paralysed with fear. i rang up the helpline and an exceedingly helpful man calmed me down, told me what numbers to put where, made it all really easy, i thank you anonymous tax phone man even now. every year since then i've rung up this helpline only to find grumpy, begrudgingly helpful people... but of course you want it that way round, i don't need exceedingly helpful man quite so much now, i'm still afraid but with every passing year it gets easier, this year i did josiahs tax return as well, (look at me getting over my fears, you could almost write a bad made for tv movie about it, 80's style)

so that's it really, nice, nice, nice. getting my new phone on monday (between 9am and 5:30pm - helpfully), going to listen to the recording of the rehearsal the other day, then maybe find someone to go see bash with tonight...?

x

josiah lack of sleep turbulence pictures with sis listing books joy links too

had breakfast with josiah & grace, got rained on hugely on the way to the cafe in a shower that lasted just long enough to soak me, the amazon was full, josiah late, so manolis had our custom, they arrived once i'd dried graces chair and strapped it in place, grace looking at me curiously as i repeated my name to her heaps of times, i've got her all day on monday so maybe she'll be saying uncle r by the time i give her back to her mum.

grace teething so josiah very short on sleep with all the mad turbulence that brings,

met my sister k tonight for a trip to the pictures, i think it's the power of this book over me but as i was approaching ray's jazz where i was meeting her i was feeling plagued by a swarm of small irritations and i said to myself my aggravations are legion, and this amused me enough to be rid of them, i've repeated this a couple of times since when i've been mulling over one thing or another and it has a certain potency, also potent is the power of my relationship with k, the telling of small woes...

we were originally going to see anchorman, my second time, because i'm the only person she knows who would see it with her, but it's almost left london, (only on in far off romford and it's ilk) so we settled on terminal, except that it was sold out, much to her chagrin (i was unmoved either by the idea of watching it or by being denied it). so we settled in the end on dodgeball, which had it's moments, certain genius cameos, and was certainly a whole lot better than the stepford wives which was our last cinema trip.

lovely to see k, left her on the southbound northern line platform @ leicester square and followed a few fairly dr whoesque corridors to the picadilly line, almost missed my stop (again) through reading that book.

that book which is now at the top of a list of books that i've read recently on this very blog, i also added a links bit but couldn't think of much to link to just yet. quite pleased with myself that i worked out how to do even just this, now if i only knew how to make the books text a little smaller, maybe a different colour.... how much i like looking back at the books i've read, reminds me of my early blogging, typing in a book to my profile and searching for other people who'd read that book in blogdom...

oh literature...

x

empty yet full day

rehearsed the 4 piece, there you go, the percushunist has disapeared from my view, maybe it will be just a 4 piece now? a bad spelling moment, need my bed, a little upsetting because of a comment from one of the musicians, basically it's my compositions being worked on & it makes me vulnerable, but aside from that it was a great rehearsal, the music coming together nicely, strange how small things can overturn your apple cart though, still niggling at me that comment,

also taught my first notation class of the year, that was good, i had a notion to go catch the end of bash but i was too late, so i didn't meet with who i thought i might, funny how lightly or heavily these things effect us,

caught up with dr k when i got home, feel as though i haven't seen much of her recently,

day off again tomorrow,...

oh look mr longcat just go to bed, you're not making any sense....

x

glacier auntie E book symbiosis

so i lost my keys, two weeks ago, i went home to blewbury to see my family & when i came back i reached into my pocket and there they weren't,

just prior to leaving the house before the trip i'd had to nip out to buy cat food and in the hurry, i thought maybe i'd put them down somewhere, but i really looked and they were nowhere to be found, i phoned home and they weren't there, even phoned my friend M to see if i'd left them round there,... no avail,

because we have so many people living in this house there is a spare set, i had that for awhile but it was beginning to impinge on the other housemates, C needed them earlier this week and so she'd borrowed auntie E's set, which i then swapped for the spare set, and needed to return to auntie E before tomorrow, when she'll need them.

i was gradually accepting the fact that i'd lost my set, at some point in the last 2 weeks i'd taken my camera out of my pocket and the long string had pulled my keys out of my pocket, i started to believe that my keys were somewhere in the lovely countryside around blewbury, dropped on one of the walks i'd gone on,

so today, just as i was about to leave the house, i picked up my keys, and realised they were my keys, they'd been there all along, and spski commented later as i was telling him, your room is like a glacier, things disappear into it that come back at some point later, we started talking about that alpen climbing accident in which some people fell into a glacier in the 20's, only to come out again, perfectly preserved almost 70 years later,...

so on my way home from waitrose today i dropped in on auntie E and gave her her keys back, fell into a long chat, which is inescapable, and finally left there i don't know how many hours later, lovely though this chat, talked about family, relatives, distant relatives you've never met...

it struck me this afternoon as i was reading in bed the book that D & H gave me as a present for singing @ their wedding, that my sister K would enjoy this book. it is a huge hardback called Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. i never buy hardbacks, they are too much of a pain in the arse to read, but this seems to be a really well written book, D has given me one book before which was great, i do trust his book choosing abilities,

i left the wedding last night around 11:30 to a light drizzle, walked along the thames to the cutty sark DLR getting actually really wet, just in my suit, trying to protect this book in my jacket but not succeeding, really was very wet when i got onto the train, wetter than i've yet been in the suit, meant that i didn't want to rest the book on my legs as i began reading it in my drunken state, had to hold it up, away from contact with my wet clothes,... pain, huge hardbacks, what can you do? and it is a lovely present,

so i rang my sister today after going to manolis's too late to eat, had a brief chat with him and scrutinised his globe of the world, had yet another oh, that's where that is moment, (this time with cyprus) which i hope to have many more of, eventually ate in O & L juice bar on the holloway road for the first time, not bad as a contrast to the dross that missing manolis on a sunday normally offers me, but to be honest the food on offer is alright, but the same but better food i could get @ the italian deli round the corner from me, so why aren't i eating there on a sunday?

anyway, the point is i spoke to my sister, and amongst other things i recomended this book to her, and she said yes, i do like it, i'm reading it now, which is (i believe), unprecedented for me & her, if not for me & most people, except for when i was in that book club back then, so although symbiosis is the wrong word almost entirely, that's the best i've got today, my and K are symbiotically reading Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel, it's going to be tricky talking about it, i think we're going to have to start quoting what page we're on to make sure we don't tell each other what they're about to read... anyway, also had a nice chat to E today, maybe go to the pictures this week, but i must go now, because i might go to the pictures this very night but i'd better get my arse in gear if that's going to happen,...

adios

x

wedding album reconsidering

D & H got married today, in a Fantastic style, H's dad air guitared with the best of them at the end of the night, well, at my end of that night, i'm home and sniffing now, who knows maybe they're still rocking over there in grenwich,

when i got up this morning i sang the song i wanted to sing at the wedding and i couldn't reach all the notes satisfactorily, i've had this cold advancing on me (in me), and it started in my throat, today it shifted to a cough and now in fact to a runny nose, but the main issue was my voice,

i drank all day, spent a fair bit of time with my old friend G who used to drum in the Red Herrings - a band i was in @ university which is where i know this whole crowd today from,

great, great speeches, very funny, very moving ceremony, great music used in the ceremony, theme tunes to tv programmes,

so my turn came to sing after the cake was cut, i was wearing my paul smith suit, i sat down at the (very nice) grand piano and played the first chord singing love me, hoping that the melody would come to me, and then i got into it, opened my eyes midway through to see a video camera right in my face, (common theme throughout the wedding), i hit the notes, i got a really nice response, slight possibility that i was just drunk and didn't notice that i didn't hit the notes, but i don't think so, after i sang i nodded to my cold and said ok then, bring it on, run through me, and hence the sniffing now,

i've been emailing my album to someone in canada and you know i've been really enjoying reevaluating it, i made it years ago, got it to a certain point, not properly mixed / mastered which is because i'm not able to do that on my own, i gave it to a few different people to get feedback on it, intending to throwout certain tunes and produce up the rest, then i moved on from writing musicon computers and got into singing with the piano, so it just sat there gathering the comments of these various people i chose,

and now in a compressed form (sort of mp3 compression but they're wav files still..?) it's being heard by j s, my new email correspondent, and i've really dug the process,

x ok sniffy bedtime x

babies galore largish bash crowd dislocation

went into town to meet a particular group of people who used to work together where i still work, but a few years ago (how to make a simple statement sound complicated), Dg pregnant, glowing as ever, B & N with baby Z, 13 weeks, last saw him (them) @ nippy's party about a week into his life, me, M & L from work, and josiah & grace, grace @ 54 weeks a whole lot heavier than Z,

lovely, but brief, dashed up for the press night, to which no press came, but a largish crowd, third night of the run, good to see it working, the music sits in it as though it's always been there.

got chatting with them afterwards, particularly K, love her sense of humour, we missed each other right at the end of the night and she left a message on my phone including the word "tiddle dee" said in front of lots of people she assured me... strange the dislocation of missing her though,

and E phoned me, crossing paths with the letter that she'll get tomorrow, she better it seems... unresolvedness from me that right now mixes in with that dislocation and doesn't taste so good,

have to find a tune to teach to my students tomorrow...

x

reaching out resonant illness

so i've begun an email correspondence, with someone i found in amongst blogdom, always nice,

the opening night of bash two nights ago and then seeing some very old friends last night meant for two slightly hungover mornings, then tonight i'm eating out with some other old friends before shooting up to highbury for the press night of bash, so more alcohol no doubt, then a day off on friday (from drinking), then some other old friends getting married on saturday, @ which i hope to sing wild is the wind, although my throat is feeling as though soreness is on it's way,

L was one of my friends last night, her mum has gone through the same stages of cancer as has my dad, very similar ages, non-smoking, non-heavydrinking, large intestine, then liver, except that her tumours in the liver were huge, 12cm compared to half cm for my dad,

anyway, L's mum now has it in her lungs and it's beyond the doctors control, chemo will slow it down but she will die from it. L getting married next june, strange to be told such a terrible story by this old friend i hadn't seen for 4 years or so, she amazing, calmly telling it, such resonance with my dad, although much milder and hopefully a different ending, but a reminder nonetheless of the fragility of it.

want to write to E today, strange to be thinking of it, so rarely use the postal service,

also huge sort out of stuff in my room, need to be fully functioning for all the different things i'm up to now,...

so onwards with that,

x