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

AUTUMN DAY by rilke - translated by stephen mitchell

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulifillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone now will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander on the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

paradise

day off,

waking up slowly, reading an article by terry castle from a december edition of the london review of books,

(gordonthegorilla i salute you, really surprisingly swift checkmate...)

i overhear auntie E talking with C about the money i owe her, she says no it's fine R will sort me out later, he left me a note, C gently insists, which means i won't have to pop into auntie E's today, which is both a shame and a good thing, popping into auntie E's can take a long, long time. but that's it, that's why this is paradise, i have time.

i also have 10 - 20 backissues of the london review of books to keep me going, the next (current) one will be here in about two weeks, no way i'll digest this flood before then, maybe i'll keep a current one on the go with a couple of back ones until i get through it all?

you know i also have almost within my grasp, the last two episodes of six feet under... apparently they really rock...

josiah was going to be at home today, so i was looking forward to a trip to the amazon with her and grace, but she found a way, grace's dad looking after grace in lew of the nanny, so she's at college, so maybe i'll go to manolis on my own.

BW rang this morning to tell me how much he likes the music, really captures the piece so he says. very nice. listened to it once already this morning, that first tune... i can hear a slight speeding up in one section of that lovely first tune but otherwise it's perfect, the last tune is slightly different tempos galore but it's also the one representing the mad, mad energy of the play so that works for me...

the calm after all that frenetic energy getting that music together, looking around at the chaos that process wreaked on my room, not that it's not chaotic almost all the time anyway, but this is a particular flavour of chaos...

x

done dusted bashed

and i need food and sleep, i might watch the opening scene of gladiator, i have really, really got no brain now, but it's done, pressed into the hot little hands of BW, opening night on tuesday, currently fairly anticlimactic, but watching the play on tuesday will do domething i guess...

x

recording done crumble ate editing still

and how much better was it having edge there? as it happens he was just as bewildered by the DAT mess up as me and had it been working right i would have been fine with what i had, i was expecting him to move the mics a bit but we found that where i'd put them worked alright, fairly damn validating that was, but even given how alright i could have been without him, just sooooo much nicer and easier with him.

we salute you mr edge.

so i'm about to record it in to my computer, do a little editing, although really not very much, panning mainly... it means i get to hear them again, which i haven't really done too much of, (heavy on the italics i seem to be today), they were very much written in a playing way, a very dynamic, physical thing, different from what happens when you sit and just listen... that first 4 minute tune i am really loving, it went down very easily, as opposed to the last 4 minute tune, which was difficult, as i knew it would be, kind of frustrating to be that close to mastering it but to be just too close to the deadline to really get it, i'm going to have to do a little cutting and pasting on that one, i'm sure it'll work out alright but i so love the unity of just really getting it right and playing it all as one take,... learning process as ever, me and deadlines..

so, record before i sleep? 3am now, i ate my dinner only an hour or so ago, (me & eating in this kind of time, last thing on my mind), i could yet have a bath.... or of course i could just crawl into bed...

dr K made a damn good crumble

x

cold vulnerable murakami rant?

am now sucking on three arnica tablets, i'm impressed that it's only three, i really wonder about arnica, does it really help or is it just psychosomatic, (there was no way i was ever going to be able to spell that word), well, even if it is all in my head, that's where it needs to be anyway...

so i am close to finishing the last piece of the bash quartet, in fact i think it is finished i just need to learn to play it... no mean feat, part of what i liked about this murakami play was the performers ability to carry off really hard things with real grace, i feel this more today because of the dexterity my piece demands of me,

once again the DAT failed, still no actual recordings, but me & edge are heading over there shortly armed with spski's minidisk as a backup so it should get rolling from there... as it failed this morning (well, around midday) i reached for my arnica and found i'd left it at home. naked. pushed on with the writing of the 4th part but it is so hard dealing with the stress of things not working, messes with one's consciousness... left there and headed into town for the play, edgy.

found them, 4 people on a 4 person table, E least accessible of them all, in a really noisy cafe, i'm a little concerned about my hearing today, i seem to be missing things, i sure missed a lot in that cafe, the sound reflecting off everything, clatter,

i guess i was hoping to speak to E alone for a short spell today, and to cut a long story short i did not get to do that, in fact it felt like i hadn't met her at all. this was hideous. the play was great, in three parts, somewhat about being out of balance, which is odd because bash is also in three parts, somewhat about being out of balance,

of the three short stories that the murakami play is based on, i have the most vivid memory of reading theone about sleeplessness, i think i was experiencing sleeplessness as i was reading it, i don't like the way the story ends, and i didn't like it in theatre form either, very distressing, not to say not good, just distressing.

something about this time with E reminds me of a time a year and a half ago, i don't intend to go into the details of the situation here, but there was confusion and there was betrayal, the betrayal leading to a huge anger on my part. now i don't see betrayal in this situation except in a more abstract way, but that time is in my mind. haruki murakami came to london back then and he was doing a reading in the prince charles cinema on a night when i was meeting J my ex-girlfriend, i'd introduced haruki murakami to her, (as i did for E too), and i wanted to take her (J) to the reading... but it was sold out. i later found out that E had managed to get in to the reading, with D, a mutual guitar playing friend. i was so angry at the time that this just made me angrier, completely irrationally, but it did, so much so that when her house was flooded and almost all of her haruki murakami books were destroyed i couldn't help but feel it as some equalising force... such is the stupidity that anger and love can bring,...

so all i'm saying is that it's odd that murakami should be here (in the form of this play) as well as the other things that remind me of that time, that's all, noticing that,

and really, really not liking this coldness from E. but then i wouldn't would i? & if she has to go through this then she has to go through it, it's not easy for her, still don't like it though.

ok edge here,

lets record some piano

x

tired tired tired

strange lack of energy today, not total, pretty good but not my whole self i don't think,

lugged my mixing desk, 2 mic stands, 2 mics, cables, DAT recorder over to my landlords, really killed me that journey, played that piano a whole lot, finished the intro, i think, which effected the shorter one that relates to it, still haven't finished completed the end piece, the mad 5 rhythm.

set it all up tonight at last, wanted to record some at least, maybe get that rush of inspiration with the tape running, but the DAT wasn't having it, finally got in touch with edge whose DAT it is and sorted it out, but it had gone midnight and was into unsociable piano hours... so still no recording, but they are sounding so nice, this last one proving so hard because i love the other one so much. so in theory i get up tomorrow morning, scoot over there, record for an hour or so, then go to the theatre with the crowd, including E,...

that's the plan, my bed awaits,

LRB joy composing time of day apprentice working

so today i hope to go to my landlords and make progress on the bash music, found myself at the piano at work after teaching yesterday and it evolved under my fingers, that piano which i've just had moved so needs tuning, i left there and the sun was setting in a marvellous orange fashion, meaning for me that my time writing had been as the sun was approaching the horizon, the time that i know from previous experience i can access some kind of energy for composing...

the teaching went well, actual information and stimulation for the students being the thing which settles things down. had M helping for the first session, the apprentice on this module, she is super organised and i am not. interesting dynamic that will be good for me. also she is used to running vocal warmup sessions and the way that this module will go i'm going to take note of her warmups in the morning and reproduce them in the afternoon, filling a gap of mine, although i found teaching something that isn't mine - particularly so intimately related to the body - was challenging, felt slightly fraudish in the afternoon. M was great doing her bit in my lesson, i think it's going to work out well.

and then the fact that one of my morning students was reading adorno, and that he'd just organised a memorial concert for edward said with daniel barenboim, through his work at the london review of books. he emailed me last night and said he would send me a few back issues with a view to setting up my subscription again... wahey.

and finally the search for a 7th member of this house is at an end, we met and chose M last night (not the apprentice), closely winning a vote with M, but M won in the end... (too many M's), so M is right now bussing backwards and forwards up the road moving a few things in before she goes back to spain on saturday to look after her dad, (resonance there), and she'll be living here about 2 weeks after that.

i still haven't found my keys, neither do i have any clear awareness about which of these keys on my desk is the key to my landlords house,

oh and i finished the poisonwood bible in bed when i woke up today, lovely way to finish a book, lovely, lovely book to finish,

i have some vegetarian sausages in the fridge that are within their date, which surprises me, every time i run out of money i assume all my food has gone bad for some reason, so breakfast awaits me, strange halflight of no money while i wait for a cheque to clear, and on top of that leaving my travelcard at home yesterday so i had to fork out for another... foolishness and clumsiness, also the halflight of how things are with E, strange how my light analogies work or don't work, tentatively writing a song about loving in the halflight, meaning half relationship, but when that halflight disappears, it's not like i'm now in the dark, and in fact that's the deal with half relationships, they are uncannily similar to being alone anyway, which is kind of where she's reached now, balthazara jumping on my desk to show me love, real danger of knocking over the precariously balanced chess set... later x

bash music soon vidal sasoon

this sunday is the deadline for the bash music, concentrating on the two one minute pieces tonight, getting closer, not sure just how i'm going to record them, but i have an option or two,

planning lessons for tomorrow overdue,

spent the afternoon staring at my own image in the mirror, courtesy of the vidal sassoon training centre, one of many dotted across london. a japanese man who had trouble keeping my right and left equal, teacher sorting it out in the end, not a bad cut, sat for awhile facing one of several different directions, giving me a maze of views and eye contacts reflected in mirrors or direct with customers, students teachers alike... i love having my hair washed in salons...

angry absence because of a moment for her quite like my love is lies moment, not that she'd like the analogy, bo inviting me to the pictures with them tonight meant that i got to experience being ignored by her, we'll see how it turns out, another period of not speaking? i hope not...

ate at the lebanese place i used to eat at years ago, the owner remembered me and i got a huge plateful of food, just like i used to, as i was leaving the guy who used to serve behind the counter when i was a regular turned up,... unspeakably nice to see both of them...

x

angry absence six & a half miles windchimes in daylight voice

so i'm watching the soprano's tonight in my own home, lovely thought, that that person is not ringing me back is caught between two things, either she's still angry in her perverse way - or she's sleeping, either way my own bed is where i'm sleeping.

i walked 6.5 miles today in mad wind around blewbury, touched on the fair mile at one point, i could see the ridgeway but didn't actually walk it. my hair, which is mad alot of the time anyway, was sooooo mad at the end of this walk. kind of walked around the walk i did on friday, really nice, very invigorating, bits of the countryside around where i grew up that i'd never seen, or so it seemed to me.

spent an hour with O, the local music figure, a bit mad but very instructive, talking about darkening the colour of my voice which made sense to me, although only an hour is nuts, it also made it clear to me how i need to get a singing teacher who is just right, great though she is, O is not the teacher for me, as if she could be anyway living in blewbury.

then as i came home for a cup of tea and a slice of cake before returning to london i saw the windchimes that i'd heard last night, well i saw half of them, such a lovely sound...

as my train raced towards london the sky cleared around the sun and looked lovely... out walking i'd had that curtain of light thing going on where you can see the edge of the shadow of a cloud moving towards you, captured very well in that film the return i saw with cedric...

hi k, is this turning up in your friends thing?

x

the last of these tiny blog bits from blewbury

as i was walking home after getting a little drunk with my old friend M, walking up my mum & dad's drive i heard wind chimes, one on either side of the drive, i stopped, swaying slightly, checking it out, there are definately two sets of wind chimes on either side of the drive, two different households... really nice, one in response to the other? two independents?

x

on the day after i was worried about roaming on private land

right to roam maps are published about roaming on private land

i never knew....

my little sister has a blog

and for how many years am i going to call her my little sister? it's not like i've any other sisters, remnants of my early life still in my language now.

blewbury new tracks

defleaing my balthazara, left the house with signs up restricting her to the basement whilst the stuff spreads to the whole of her body, another 5 hours or so and she'll have the run of the house again, but i won't see her for another 2 days, maybe she'll have forgiven me by then.

came home to blewbury for the weekend, london was grey and cold as i left, blewbury was beautiful and bright when i arrived,

took a walk up the hill, saw our next door neighbour with his huge but nice dog, chatted awhile, the sunlight coming in really low, my shadow huge, looking down at the ground was like looking at the surface of the moon, each tiny stone with a long shadow, carried on up the hill and got a little nervous about the cows, climbed over the fence onto the triangulation point, gazed at the world, sun low but not yet setting, realised that the gap between the fences had been widened, so i started walking between the fences in a direction i rarely walk in, maybe once before i've reached that copse there, picked my way through, quite steep covered in stinging nettles so hard to judge where my feet go...

got down the other side of the hill & i could see this ridge that i've often thought about walking, no longer a public right of way but i decided to check it out, had to climb over a barbed wire fence to get there, then i was walking in a curve towards the crescent moon, at the bottom of this ridge, scrambled up to the top about halfway along, found a track and followed it, the further i got from the road the more off-world it seemed, particularly with the sun hidden behind the hill, strange light, a massive field with perfectly combed dirt, made me think of jupiter...
aerial view with map, i was walking between baldon hill & riddle hill
slightly nervous as i was on some farmers land, hoping that the track i was on would lead eventually back to blewbury, but the only track that led off without heading back where i'd come would have taken me too far out before i could loop round to where i was headed, so i followed my original track and it looped round back onto where i started, sun gone now, i phoned E who is looking after niece & nephews feeling worse for wear and i started really walking fast to get home with some light in the sky, countryside dark is so much darker than city dark, crescent moon that was pale before now golden, made it back to a lovely meal with the family...

i like the idea of gradually increasing my local knowledge of geography round here, incrementally over decades... 2 more days to go out again if i want, also want to play this piano, that i learnt on, go see this local music figure about my voice, see M if i can and hang out with K & D, & mum & dad...

blessed time of year to be here, (to be anywhere)

x

new spirituals

imagination,

close to tears listening to this cd of funki g's, two tracks in particular:

you, you,
you who made worlds collide,
i knew you'd come knocking one day
unannounced like a thief in the night

which reminds me of those tunes of baba's that i used to do versions of with that guy when i was involved with ananda marga, i've often thought about those tunes, how i'd like to hear those words again..

and then the very next one:

birds singing in the trees
singing songs that you've never heard
......
i love days like this
here comes the sun

boh to do with how today looks out there, bright sunshine in this perfect of seasonal shifts, but also, and this is where the almost tears come:

imagining being at a gig of funki g's, some kind of open air dance floor, me sat watching high up, with someone close, as she puts this tune on i see the sun rising, i pull my companion closer...

imagination

x

how many times do i have to learn about me & sleeplessness?

second day of the soundstart induction week today (wednesday),

on monday night i had insomnia, went to bed around 1:30am, got to sleep around 5am (i think), this could be something i've had before to do with work starting, the way i imagine it i resent going back to work after a holiday, i see going to sleep as my holiday being over - being as when i wake up i'm going to work, so i just don't go to sleep, saying i here & referring to a cross little boy somewhere in my subconscious, then again it could be that tiny amount of marching powder the other night, or indeed the huge lack of sleep on the weekend knocking me around still.

so tuesday was messy, i got to work ok, (funny how i go back to sleep after my alarm but wake up just in the nick of time to get to work on time, albeit looking mad), and i worked well i think, teaching is like performing in that respect as they love saying at my college, i can generally rise to it no matter what kind of mad state i'm in, although after gigs i can taste the adrenaline still, teaching has a different taste. after teaching i pretty much started babbling more or less incoherently, met with S, (A's wife), she's doing only the search & reflect module from the teaching course, which is great that she can.

because we finished an hour early i was stuck, my keyboard being @ L's and he not getting in from work til later, all carefully arranged before so i could get to my soundcheck on time, (playing with greenlaw down in clapham that night), so i accompanied S up to camden on the tube, lovely to talk to her, although i was starting to get more than a little tangential by the time i left her, drifted back on the tube, realising how perfect that environment was for that state, warm, constant motion, soothing chatter of train sounds...

made it to L's got into his building by chance before him and chilled out on the roof, the most incredible roof, right by spitalfields market, such a view in such a wondrous light, added to which they'd recently painted the floor (of the roof) white, making it almost snowlike...

L arrived (he waved at me as he came round the corner) we played chess, i was dumb, got afew pieces down but made it back, lost in the end, exciting game, he gave me tea, kitkats and a croissant, i ironed my shirt, i was getting late for my soundcheck so he pushed me out the door with my keyboard weighing so much more than normal (in my mind), i got to liverpool street station and realised i'd left my book (with my travelcard) @ L's, i simply couldn't face lugging the keyboard back there so i wasted more money on dailies (for today as well), went down to the gig, very much the worse for wear.

but in the end the gig was great, i shone, they were great, we were great, loads of quality acts down there that night, the acoustic lounge @ the 100 bar, clapham park road, in particular a singer/songwriter/guitarist (of which there were a few) with definate strains of nick drake & elliott smith whose name escapes me, (and isn't on their website - likewise so aren't we - we being the past),

bubbles didn't make it,

i've bumped into F two mornings running now @ sam's counter @ finsbury park, both times have been at my really close to being late time to catch my train so i ought not to be seeing her too often, who knows though, maybe i will,

i saw her last week too (i wonder if i blogged that?) kooky,

and today work was great, search & reflect with soundstart which i was more than a little nervous about beforehand but they lapped it up, fantastic, i met with L's flatmate and got my book back, (so upsetting being without a book - i took out dark back of time but it didn't work), with my travelcard in it, gave my daily to someone at the busstop,

oh and then tonight i went to the pictures with dr K and i cried several times with laughing, we saw anchorman, and it was perfect, could have saved it for my sister being as we saw elf together but glad i saw it waith dr K, lovely...

x

lovely lovely lovely

rehearsed, 4-piece, (5th incomunicardo - i really can't spell that word), and it was a joy,

me, L & H (voice, piano, double bass & cello) with K (gtr) arriving later, got through midnight, love is lies, on my mind & harbour walls.

shaky yet but it's going to be fantastic, piano module held up well, did a little editing work on it earlier today.

saw E this weekend, almost no sleep on saturday night, love is lies came up at some point on sunday, me fragile as i always am with that sleeplessness, funny, the tune isn't going away, maybe i'm being particularly selfish, but that tune is a very honest expression of how i felt one day in relation to E, and even though i've moved on from specific feeling it still has a lot of truth about where i'm at, so the tune isn't going away (it sounds soooo nice with cello and double bass), not that she's likely to this town ain't big enough for the both of us, it's me or the tune, if she did, right now the tune would win.

anyway, potential new housemate here,

later

x

29 our disaster they're everywhere

back home, adrenaline got me through the night, running my bath now,
deadringers on telly, tempted to watch the end where they go mad but i'd like to check the whole thing someday soon.

got to the gig only to find 29, live hiphop, students past and present, they are everywhere at the minute, nice to check their set, on before us, small crowd... the drummer J is a nice fella, seems many of them are in fact.

so we finally got up there, lock 17, really nice venue, cd player was jumping, O's bass string broke, only my second gig with this outfit and it's just me & S, keys and voice, challenging... short, abortive gig, we did a tune just the two of us, ended with just her voice for a track, although the gig was wierd it was nice to see her rise to it,

now my bath, maybe a tea, then my long awaited, richly deserved, dishevelled but delicious bed.

x

short on sleep can't believe i'm about to do a gig

that's the whole story, not enough energy to lift my tea cup, how on earth am i going to get my keyboard to the gig and then play the gig... x

first gig done party tonight i hope

i performed with greenlaw ave last night, first gig with them and also the first gig with the new module, sat here now listening to tim buckley (strange feeling) shortly to be watching the lady pirates do their thing, so this may be briefer than i hope..

a performance poet going by the name of oneness was on before us. i dug her stuff but she went on longer than planned which in the long run meant we played less. I realised that when i played with kyo there is a whole social world i love, just hanging out with the musicians, that i missed last night. in this gig in camden i knew noone but the two other musicians, who are both lovely, but particularly after the gig when they were both networking furiously, i was packing up my stuff, recieving handshakes and congratulations intermittently, an unfamiliar crowd, just odd to be alone. then after i was packed up i felt a bit nowhere... spoke to this guy who'd played before - really nice stuff, tuning on some of his higher notes a little awry which i really noticed, in fact i'm sure everyone notices that - something i'm conscious of for my stuff... anyway, i introduced myself and said i enjoyed his stuff, he was nice enough, tiny chat...

i made a move fairly quickly, got a few notes for my troubles and skidaddled, in such a hurry to go in fact that i left my manbag, luckily i've been keeping all kinds of things - travelcard included - in the pages of the book i'm reading (the poisonwood bible), so i can survive without the bag until tomorrow when i gig with them again,

as i left i realised that the guy i'd spoken to briefly was the same guy who laughed at me as i arrived, carrying my keyboard i do cut a certain odd figure, at the end of a journey i am really not in a receptive mood for being laughed at, odd that.

i did the whole gig with the fender rhodes sound on the module, still in a strange place about the piano, potentially three gigs in three nights with them from tomorrow so i can check out the piano, a few things i want to experiment with to get with that sound...

and there is a party tonight i want to go to, but i'm meeting E & she's talking like she might not make it to the party, i don't think i'm up for turning up to this one alone, not quite enough people i know there...

x

once more with feeling

honestly, i'm close to tears, playing that module while listening to it through K's shithot expensive headphones... still i have my reservations, in particular the up section of harbour walls, right now i'm playing exactly where and what i don't want to play with this sound,

but people, let me tell you:

playing a real piano gives me a sense of emotional connection to the instrument, my fender rhodes was the first electronic thing that gave me that, and now this module goes some way towards that too, maybe not quite as immediate as with a real piano but fuck...

x

likening to that piano in that church

the one that was trashed, an old grand that had seen better days,

i mourn your passing, beautiful piano,
though flawed and broken, you were the soul of this place,....

and when i played it i took note (somewhere in my unconscious) of which keys worked and which keys didn't, i evolved a way of playing that came from the direct experience of playing, missing the terrible notes, playing the beautiful ones...

so with this module, single notes on their own in the middle of the piano, about an octave, where my hands go of their own accord on a normal piano, on this module i don't like how they sound, neither do i like straight ahead chords in this place,... so i have to evolve a way of playing which avoids this area, or those intervals in this area, thirds or single notes...

particularly if i think about the band, the 5-piece. with such beautiful natural instruments, the fake quality of those notes will be all too real for me, but also, arranging the cello & guitar to be there if we need that register, not having to play there. which is something i want to really look at anyway, getting the sound of this band really balanced and nice, guitar and piano often overlap, so me & K living together, working on what works between us...

in fact that is how this band is working right now, we still haven't met as a 5-piece, i'm hoping that monday will see us all together for the first time, but actually i dig this - piano & bass one day, cello, guitar, piano another, piano & guitar here... there is alot that needs to be constructed and if everyone is prepared to give their time on this way then i'm happy. what monday will show i guess is just how up for it my musicians are. i need to get the semble gig confirmed and have a clear route to that to show them...

oh, these times.

scary.

x

from a deep place

ok so the midrange of the piano sounds a bit synthesised, but that could be the speakers i'm playing through, but the way that it plays, and how it sounds with my voice,...

just sang through a few of my tunes with it, i'm diving once more,

it has a sound i could get lost in. i can really see how my 5-piece can function now, with this sound embedded within it.

xxx

a butterfly at christmas

i am very excited.

just to hold it off a little longer i'm going to tell you about my day, (in brief).

the front door woke me @ 9:30, i scurried downstairs hoping to see the postman with a package for me, only to find a lady pirate (long story),

i returned to bed disappointed. without being able to get back to sleep i went to check if the post had come yet, and it had. i phoned the man who i'm buying the module from and he told his wife had sent it a couple of days ago - he said she must have sent it 2nd class. i started wondering if it would arrive in time for fridays gig, or sundays for that matter.

even more disappointed i drifted off into a bizarre sleep, always bizarre though the sleep you have once you've woken up and back to bed/sleep. i woke again @ 2, then finally @3:45, glum, today was going to be a day of investigating this new piano, also that odd feeling of having slept all day, all that sunlight i'd missed...

so i came downstairs bleary eyed, the lady pirates had taken over the groundfloor and sat upon our frontroom table was a large package bearing my name...

unspeakably exciting, i felt like i'd gone to bed and my sleep had woven a cocoon around me, i'd woken up a butterfly.

and since i couldn't straight away check out the sounds on this module (lady pirates), i went about my day, checking emails, playing chess, breakfasted out @ the amazon.

now i'm back, the frontroom is free, i've had a cup of tea. i have that christmas feeling of knowing i have a treat but holding it off.

oh and i realised, sat in the amazon, that my email changing (& it has changed qualitatively) has put me in that strange connected state when i'm sat @ my computer, to the extent that i felt slightly bereft of this connectedness as i ate my breakfast... something to check out, also that the email business will shift me back upstairs to my own computer, rather than this basement computer that has caught me a little in it's sway...

anyway,

i have something to do...

x

hey francesca

so that was wierd, ringing up F out of the blue, and she tells me she's been reading this here blog every now and again...

i had been assuming that noone reads this, i think it's probably better if i carry on assuming that, even if F is dipping in.

i welcome you of course F, and i will be coming round for that great macrobiotic food and piano playing. would like to hear your voice again.

transfering email business, spam is getting me down, the daily perusing of hundreds of email subjects, all kinds of obscure things, who knows what kind of effect on my psyche that has, information pollution.

the longcat.net email officially launched on the world, using mozilla thunderbird. supporting emerging, or at least independent technology. similar reasons for choosing pegasus as my email application all those years ago. thunderbird already is doing things for me that pegasus can't, but pegasus can deal with distribution lists, thunderbird can't? or just that i don't yet know how to?

obscure use of italics, like when i was wandering round the tate modern yesterday with L, telling me i have that american raising intonation at the end of my sentences.

blogspot was down this afternoon, first time that's happened that i've noticed since i've been blogging. glad it's back.

reading the poisonwood bible, everyone and their dog was reading it maybe a year ago, has a character who thinks in palindromes, loving that:

(to the tune of amazing grace)

Evil, all . . . its sin . . . is still . . . alive!
Do go . . . Tata . . . to God!
Suger don't . . . No, drag us
drawn onward,
A, he rose . . . ye eyesore, ha!

from today (wednesday), sitting in manolis's cafe:

he was talking with his son about selling the cafe, which would make me very sad, manolis's food, and the oddball individuals that go in there, and his personality...

i ask him how much? his son jokes that i'm talking about how much for the cafe... three fifty manolis tells me.

last week for some reason he wanted to teach me the greek phrase:

dum spiro spero

as long as i live, i breathe.

i got him to write it down and it's now my bookmark.

x

balthazara 

manolis greenlaw

popped over to manolis's, that guy C was there, i'd once got stuck in a conversation with him about the alpha course, he's rude to manolis, joking, and manolis jokes back, but... it made me think of the night before, seeing something i don't want to see, hoping my reaction doesn't show,... curious,

greenlaw ave came round, first gig with them on friday, first gig with the GEM module, which still hasn't arrived... the tiny yet exponential growth of suspicion that it somehow won't arrive.

x

pissed

with that feeling of a disaster, not too far away these days, work started, alcohol seemingly common, 15 games of chess, shouldn't be playing now, loosing the games i'm paying attention to now, even after six feet under, still that dumbing down that alcohol gives you, josiah wearing the wig she wore that night over a year ago when she was so happy. reminding myself that it's not so bad, drink water, sleep. saw L (double bass) today, really nice. long way to go.

x

waiting ends, something else begins

well, not quite true in both cases, but i'm getting ahead of myself:

the quest for the piano module is at an end, finally it is found, (edge found it online), and now in fact payed for, it's winging it's way over to me, i am still waiting for it, but waiting for the arrival of something that you know is coming is so much the better kind if waiting, rather than waiting, finding, not knowing if you will find...

and also my story has been published online, i submitted it to a website a while back, a week or so later they rejected it because it was written in lower case (just like this blog - my style), so i resubmitted it with the appropriate capitalisation, nervously checking the website every day to see if it was pending, rejected, or approved. approved it now is.

so in both cases this moment in time points forward as well as back, the module hopefully points to gigs with a piano sound that i like, just as i turn down gigs for kyo funnily enough. the guy who is selling it to me gigged with it on saturday night, still very much a gigging creature. and the writing, hopefully it will be read, feedback maybe, onto more writing.

it's funny, even though i'm not going to link from here to my story, and indeed i'm deliberately not showing it to anyone i know, i do want that story to be read, more than i want this blog to be read. i would like people to read this blog but i'm writing it anyway, readers or no readers. the story though, i'm really interested in whether it works...

anyway

happy day

x

surface & colour 

the last interview on the last day

accompanied dr k into town yesterday, she to see before sunset, closing her festival experience with it. she'd seen before sunrise on friday when she left work. when we'd gone down to tanners hatch for spski's birthday Ia had told us how much he rated those films, so there was a link for dr k back to that weekend too.

i went to see the last interview with edward said.

i'd tried a month or so back and it had been sold out for the week, this is @ the ica, this time it was on from friday to tuesday, i caught the last day.

a very simple film, just two men sat on a sofa, fading to black every now and again to structure it. it starts with a quote from roland barthes which is quoted in beginnings, about how the only interview worth doing with a writer is one in which the writer talks about what he cannot write.

there was so much in that film, words spoken by this articulate man, it was a little overwhelming.

he began by talking about his illness, he'd had leukemia for the last ten years of his life. how the illness weakened him, how he'd stopped playing the piano for the last 8 months, how he couldn't read as easily as he once could. heart breaking, echoes of my dad, although he hasn't ever got that sick, similar ages, cancer, also echoes of my mum later on, talking about his childhood in palestine and then egypt, my mum was in egypt as a young girl around about the time said left cairo for america.

as a child in cairo his mum used to take him to the opera, he developed a dislike of verdi, and a love of rossini. he spoke about a performance of the barber of seville in cairo, the great singer.. ? most famous for singing tosca? sang the barber. this kind of knowledge, and that era of great performers, something my elderly people used to talk about, somehow related to jet li, in this digital age the only one who still has that level of skill and mastery of his body... verdi's aida, seen as some kind of pinnacle by others, hated by him, echoes of vertigo here, sebald in verona? his companion bemoaning the modern opera audience, not realising they are part of the occasion, images of carriages pausing to allow young men to step up to young ladies...

said says he very occasionally saw a tarzan film as a child, which he loved, and he identified with the white man in it. he quoted fanon as saying that when he saw tarzan in algeria he identified with the white man, when he saw it in france he identified with the black men.

at one point said talks about a line by gerard manley hopkins which he quotes as:

all things counter, original, spare,

that has been important to him his whole life. the whole poem called pied beauty

i work on what is very difficult:

music
palestine / israel
the role of the intellectual

a game he developed as a young man, the difference between filiation & affiliation. the first being your duty to your family and your past, the second being those contacts you make outside of that....

the great thing about music and literature is that... and here i wish i had his ability to articulate,.. sometimes you come across subjects or areas which are like vista's, they spread out in front of you, (like cavafy he said).

late style, two options, to grow old and become reconciled, mellow with the approach of death, or to seek out and reveal the contradictions, find more complexity, intransigence.... i hope he finished that book...

the film closed with his particular vision (utopian) of palestine / israel, a country where two people's coexist, equally. he had been a supporter of partition, but it was clear from india/pakistan, ireland, cyrprus, that this was not the way to go...

what a film, what a blessed man.

i spoke to my mum and dad afterwards (filiation), planned to meet dad on friday, i'm seeing my sister tonight, pictures,

last night after the film i lay around in the park just by the ica, in the sun, asking the sky to give me the strength and the eloquence of that man...

later i went down to brixton to see D (not fiat) whose off to new york today for three weeks. E there, we missed our chance to snuggle up with six feet under and that's probably that for this current spell of us. genesis of another song if i want it. lovely, lovely, lovely to see D.

& today i'm doing music, both L & S cancelled, K could never do it today, H still coming round i guess? even if noone comes i'll still play...

x