what is this mystery tune?
answers in the comments...
(i will be so impressed if anyone who reads this blog can do this.. not only read the music well enough to play/sing it but also know the tune... it's a soul classic... i've said too much)
x
Monday, October 31, 2005
mystery tune
i want to be asleep, but just because i've prepared this for my students tomorrow i'm going to ask you my readers the same question...
what is this mystery tune?
answers in the comments...
(i will be so impressed if anyone who reads this blog can do this.. not only read the music well enough to play/sing it but also know the tune... it's a soul classic... i've said too much)
x
what is this mystery tune?
answers in the comments...
(i will be so impressed if anyone who reads this blog can do this.. not only read the music well enough to play/sing it but also know the tune... it's a soul classic... i've said too much)
x
Sunday, October 30, 2005
late night suited
coming home after bo & dr K's birthday, getting in @ 4:30 am, well, 4:30 am by my clock, but it's the time of the year when the clocks change so in fact i get another hour in bed which is very welcome...
lots of old friends who i haven't seen for some time, i wore my suit which was pleasing to me & bo in particular, we were living it up @ milk & honey on poland street, some classy place that bo's M is a member of... expensive drinks...
the journey home remarkerbly easy & quick, on my own travelling north while the majority of them headed south... the autumnness of the air and the falling leaves imprinting itself on my wayward headspace... a little lost but also full of love for my friends - well, for bo & dr K in particular... gave bo a copy of the frank sinatra book which she'll love i hope...
not a whole lot to say, funny, walking up from seven sisters road i felt as though it would all tumble out out of me when i sat here but it's not really there, my bed calls...
x
lots of old friends who i haven't seen for some time, i wore my suit which was pleasing to me & bo in particular, we were living it up @ milk & honey on poland street, some classy place that bo's M is a member of... expensive drinks...
the journey home remarkerbly easy & quick, on my own travelling north while the majority of them headed south... the autumnness of the air and the falling leaves imprinting itself on my wayward headspace... a little lost but also full of love for my friends - well, for bo & dr K in particular... gave bo a copy of the frank sinatra book which she'll love i hope...
not a whole lot to say, funny, walking up from seven sisters road i felt as though it would all tumble out out of me when i sat here but it's not really there, my bed calls...
x
Thursday, October 27, 2005
almost tears
just watched a powerful program about the blitz on channel 4, really good set of stories from people who survived the night of 29th december 1940, it seems that the attack on london that night was the first time insendury bombs were used... bombs that start fires that are then turned into a firestorm that completely destroys the target... a technique that britain used later on to kill hundreds of thousands of germans particularly in dresden but in many cities in germany... the subject of WC Sebalds book on the natural history of destruction which i read earlier this year and the end by Hans Erich Nossack about Hamburgs destruction written shortly after the war by a survivor...
the german bombers on this night did not return as they had planned to complete the destruction because of adverse weather conditions, so only 163 people died instead of the 100,000's killed in the british raids on germany... and st paul's cathedral remained standing.
i found myself moved almost to tears by the program, that feeling of the ground you're stood on falling away from you inside but without the deluge of tears...
a few things make today one of those days when i'm close to tears anyway, the main reason being that i'm short on sleep...
was watching a program last night about the suez canal crisis when i should have been preparing my lesson for today so i didn't get all the bedtime i needed...
it was such a killer of a day today in london,
i taught in the morning and then stooged down by the river in the glorious sunshine of the afternoon, low tide and many pools of water and sea birds to take pictures of...
i then cycled up through town and stopped in a couple of parks to film the sunlight on the leaves of the trees,
ending up in that square outside the renoir cinema with that enormous tree that i've come to love...
rested my camera in the elbow of a branch to video more sky/leaves when my dad rang and i arranged to go meet him for a cup of tea in ray's jazz in foyles...
we came home after this (me on my bike, he on the tube) and we had another tea waiting to set off to meet felinity, spski came in from work and it pleased me no end that we had a nice conversation, dad's dad had been the gardener @ chequers - the prime ministers country residence - until 1979, an area spski knows a little from mountain biking around there...
a similar moment of almost tears came as i sat around our kitchen table watching spski and dad talk...
we met felinity and we three ate in jai krishna's the fantastic vegetarian indian restaurant on stroud green road... i'm meeting felinity next week to go to the pictures and i hope both mum & dad will be in london again within the month, only brother D missing if mum comes next time...
and finally about my lesson this morning, taught partly by my new apprentice J - who is an old friend of another friend funnily enough, having him in the lesson just beginning to teach is interesting for the contrast it throws on my teaching, not that he's a bad teacher, just inexperienced for now which is why he's on the apprenticeship... as well as enjoying having him there (he's a lovely guy) it's nice to be reminded that i'm good at what i do...
x
the german bombers on this night did not return as they had planned to complete the destruction because of adverse weather conditions, so only 163 people died instead of the 100,000's killed in the british raids on germany... and st paul's cathedral remained standing.
i found myself moved almost to tears by the program, that feeling of the ground you're stood on falling away from you inside but without the deluge of tears...
a few things make today one of those days when i'm close to tears anyway, the main reason being that i'm short on sleep...
was watching a program last night about the suez canal crisis when i should have been preparing my lesson for today so i didn't get all the bedtime i needed...it was such a killer of a day today in london,
i taught in the morning and then stooged down by the river in the glorious sunshine of the afternoon, low tide and many pools of water and sea birds to take pictures of... i then cycled up through town and stopped in a couple of parks to film the sunlight on the leaves of the trees,
ending up in that square outside the renoir cinema with that enormous tree that i've come to love... rested my camera in the elbow of a branch to video more sky/leaves when my dad rang and i arranged to go meet him for a cup of tea in ray's jazz in foyles...
we came home after this (me on my bike, he on the tube) and we had another tea waiting to set off to meet felinity, spski came in from work and it pleased me no end that we had a nice conversation, dad's dad had been the gardener @ chequers - the prime ministers country residence - until 1979, an area spski knows a little from mountain biking around there...a similar moment of almost tears came as i sat around our kitchen table watching spski and dad talk...
we met felinity and we three ate in jai krishna's the fantastic vegetarian indian restaurant on stroud green road... i'm meeting felinity next week to go to the pictures and i hope both mum & dad will be in london again within the month, only brother D missing if mum comes next time...
and finally about my lesson this morning, taught partly by my new apprentice J - who is an old friend of another friend funnily enough, having him in the lesson just beginning to teach is interesting for the contrast it throws on my teaching, not that he's a bad teacher, just inexperienced for now which is why he's on the apprenticeship... as well as enjoying having him there (he's a lovely guy) it's nice to be reminded that i'm good at what i do...
x
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
dream injury new book slight cloud
i started the new york trilogy last night by paul auster, lent to me a little while ago by H my cellist, she'd thought i'd already read it and was surprised to find i hadn't, she lent it to me there & then...
the first chapter or two include some distressing images and perhaps in response to this i had a disturbed dream last night... i was talking to someone - a woman, not sure who - and she started walking away from me, she reached my window and opened it and climbed out... i live on the first floor and i was concerned that she'd fall and hurt herself so i was trying to get her to come in, talking to her more and more urgently... in the end i opened the window myself (i don't know how it was shut again) and the cold air woke me up for real as i was looking around and couldn't see her anywhere, after a short while i realised that this was because i was now awake and it had been a dream... but waking up by an open window is slightly distressing... i shut the window again and got back into bed but i found that i'd hurt my wrist slightly, a small sprain maybe or a twist as i'd yanked the window open with dream strength... nothing too serious and it's pretty much gone now.. it's possible the pain is what woke me up...
and then today i find myself under a slight cloud, partly to do with the dream - which wasn't as bad as those dreams get but was of the same quality as the bad ones... but not only the dream, these clouds come and go, nothing too terrible but worth noting that it's there...
funny that the very night i post up that celebration of my hands i hurt my hand (well, my wrist) in my sleep...
x
the first chapter or two include some distressing images and perhaps in response to this i had a disturbed dream last night... i was talking to someone - a woman, not sure who - and she started walking away from me, she reached my window and opened it and climbed out... i live on the first floor and i was concerned that she'd fall and hurt herself so i was trying to get her to come in, talking to her more and more urgently... in the end i opened the window myself (i don't know how it was shut again) and the cold air woke me up for real as i was looking around and couldn't see her anywhere, after a short while i realised that this was because i was now awake and it had been a dream... but waking up by an open window is slightly distressing... i shut the window again and got back into bed but i found that i'd hurt my wrist slightly, a small sprain maybe or a twist as i'd yanked the window open with dream strength... nothing too serious and it's pretty much gone now.. it's possible the pain is what woke me up...
and then today i find myself under a slight cloud, partly to do with the dream - which wasn't as bad as those dreams get but was of the same quality as the bad ones... but not only the dream, these clouds come and go, nothing too terrible but worth noting that it's there...
funny that the very night i post up that celebration of my hands i hurt my hand (well, my wrist) in my sleep...
x
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
my hands
i love watching my hands playing the piano... not while i'm playing, but after... i rarely do it...
when we recorded connie i put my little camera on the piano to video my hands and i've just put up the first version of the resultant video... the nicely mixed audio and the scratchy images... (the audio compressed down to fit on the internet so not quite so nice anymore)...
i have no idea if anyone else would be even remotely interested in seeing my hands perform that piece but it pleases me no end... still a few teething troubles with the process so later version will be better, but there it is... go see it please...
x
when we recorded connie i put my little camera on the piano to video my hands and i've just put up the first version of the resultant video... the nicely mixed audio and the scratchy images... (the audio compressed down to fit on the internet so not quite so nice anymore)...
i have no idea if anyone else would be even remotely interested in seeing my hands perform that piece but it pleases me no end... still a few teething troubles with the process so later version will be better, but there it is... go see it please...
x
cedric nash big rain connie video
worked my long monday and then cycled home in the mad big rain of last night... something about the taste of water... and the smell of it, cycling in that weather often gives me a moment or two that reminds me of swimming, maybe the rain reaches my nose or my tongue... not sure if it's a taste or smell thing... i have the impression of purity that water can give, even though london rain is probably far from pure...
i got in and took off all my wet clothes, which by this time meant every stitch of clothing i had on, then with a towel around me went and joined in the social that was going on in my basement, i only meant to be betowelled long enough for the water to heat up for a shower but the boiler was being funny so i was in a towel for the whole night...
spski had invited cedric nash round and also dr K and her fella I... they'd eaten by the time i got in so i wolfed down some toast while chatting to dr K... cedric on good form... i was hoping to see cedric again today but i think his world is too complex... he's flying to india tomorrow...
and i'm trying to match up the video i took from the recording session of connie with the audio we mixed down on sunday... one version in particular proving tricky where we took one take, and sliced up two solos from other takes to insert into it... i'm still deciding which one is the definative version, could be the frankenstein one or one of the whole takes... funny to cut up a solo, the natural way i phrased it on the day breaking up into separate bits... but it works well enough...
cutting and splicing video in windows movie maker - my current editing technique - is hellish... the control i'm used to having with audio programs completely lacking in this program... damn microsoft and their wierd exclusive video format that my camera happens to film in... so for the film version i might end up with the whole take version of the piece... of course i might go for that with the audio version too... the decision has to be made before i go see the child which could be awhile if i try and coordinate it with felinity, alot sooner if i go on my own...
now i'm going to lie on my bed and finish this sinatra book, he's just got married to mia farrow and the end is in sight (he sacked his valet - who's writing the book - within a few months of the wedding i think)... the joys of days off... kind of sad for mr S, his life really not that great by this time...
x
i got in and took off all my wet clothes, which by this time meant every stitch of clothing i had on, then with a towel around me went and joined in the social that was going on in my basement, i only meant to be betowelled long enough for the water to heat up for a shower but the boiler was being funny so i was in a towel for the whole night...
spski had invited cedric nash round and also dr K and her fella I... they'd eaten by the time i got in so i wolfed down some toast while chatting to dr K... cedric on good form... i was hoping to see cedric again today but i think his world is too complex... he's flying to india tomorrow...
and i'm trying to match up the video i took from the recording session of connie with the audio we mixed down on sunday... one version in particular proving tricky where we took one take, and sliced up two solos from other takes to insert into it... i'm still deciding which one is the definative version, could be the frankenstein one or one of the whole takes... funny to cut up a solo, the natural way i phrased it on the day breaking up into separate bits... but it works well enough...
cutting and splicing video in windows movie maker - my current editing technique - is hellish... the control i'm used to having with audio programs completely lacking in this program... damn microsoft and their wierd exclusive video format that my camera happens to film in... so for the film version i might end up with the whole take version of the piece... of course i might go for that with the audio version too... the decision has to be made before i go see the child which could be awhile if i try and coordinate it with felinity, alot sooner if i go on my own...
now i'm going to lie on my bed and finish this sinatra book, he's just got married to mia farrow and the end is in sight (he sacked his valet - who's writing the book - within a few months of the wedding i think)... the joys of days off... kind of sad for mr S, his life really not that great by this time...
x
Monday, October 24, 2005
connie
who is getting on these days, she must be 3 months old by now...
i went round to G's place yesterday to do the final mix of her tune that he recorded for me on the landlord's piano a few months back, east end boy for only a few more months before him & his wife move down south, just a little trip down the canal and we'll probably be making music together a fair bit while he's this close...
i found it hard work listening to the quality of the sound that intently for that long, not something i do very often, a different focus from my usual listening... and lovely to hear that piece sound so beautiful (even if i say so myself) the tone of the piano as picked up by those mic's... hmmmm
on the day we recorded it once i'd played through the tune enough times and we had a good enough version somewhere amongst the takes i improvised a short tune, being as we had the mics all set up... yesterday after listening for so long to connie's tune it was with a real emotional shift that we turned our attention to the improvisation... an emotional shift for me i mean, in listening to it... such a different place harmonically, made me want to be recording many piano pieces (which is of course the plan) and building up many different colours, finding out what emotions they evoke...
felt a little like a chemist, or a witch, mixing up some potent brew... or indeed the character in perfume, the collector & combiner of aromatic essences...
good relationship with G growing as well, the dynamic between performer and producer, as well as between writing partners which is what we may become...
anyway must get dressed and head off for monday's work mountain...
x
i went round to G's place yesterday to do the final mix of her tune that he recorded for me on the landlord's piano a few months back, east end boy for only a few more months before him & his wife move down south, just a little trip down the canal and we'll probably be making music together a fair bit while he's this close...
i found it hard work listening to the quality of the sound that intently for that long, not something i do very often, a different focus from my usual listening... and lovely to hear that piece sound so beautiful (even if i say so myself) the tone of the piano as picked up by those mic's... hmmmm
on the day we recorded it once i'd played through the tune enough times and we had a good enough version somewhere amongst the takes i improvised a short tune, being as we had the mics all set up... yesterday after listening for so long to connie's tune it was with a real emotional shift that we turned our attention to the improvisation... an emotional shift for me i mean, in listening to it... such a different place harmonically, made me want to be recording many piano pieces (which is of course the plan) and building up many different colours, finding out what emotions they evoke...
felt a little like a chemist, or a witch, mixing up some potent brew... or indeed the character in perfume, the collector & combiner of aromatic essences...
good relationship with G growing as well, the dynamic between performer and producer, as well as between writing partners which is what we may become...
anyway must get dressed and head off for monday's work mountain...
x
Saturday, October 22, 2005
the future & the past
when i got into the house today i had a lovely melody running in my head, turned out to be a scott walker one, from copenhagen (scott 3)
today i took a shuffling step towards the future by getting some more RAM and a DVD writer, largely to deal with video, at this stage archiving, then later DVD authoring... the RAM to make my computer more able to deal with video editing... i got them in the computer fair in town and afterwards i almost went straight home but something drew me further into town,
and what it was drawing me to was a chance encounter with a friend who i know through another, closer friend, and he was going to meet that very same closer friend...
D (who doesn't write books about fiat cars) being the closer friend, S & his girlfriend A the chance meeters... we sat in old compton street awhile and had tea (or coffee), S & A had just been to the anarchist bookfair which has moved this year to holloway road, i intended to pop in there on my way home but we chatted for longer than i'd realised, S was just showing me the books he'd bought there, interesting, anarchist stuff, it filled me with the desire for the bookfair and i raced off, but i got to holloway too late... one more year of missing the anarchist bookfair... i used to go several years ago when it was in conway hall, semio-text / AK books always had a stall there (i bet they still do) where i could find the most recent hakim bey books, hakim bey being staunchly anti-internet these days so it's hard to find him online... print only...
i also stocked up on a few more essentials, bike stuff, contact lenses... ate a great veggie shepherds pie in the amazon and read more of the sinatra book... and me & spski just watched the spy who came in from the cold - the richard burton flim.. moody & great... 1966...
so i'm pointing forward and back... i've installed the RAM now i'm i'm going to power down and get the DVD writer in there...
x
today i took a shuffling step towards the future by getting some more RAM and a DVD writer, largely to deal with video, at this stage archiving, then later DVD authoring... the RAM to make my computer more able to deal with video editing... i got them in the computer fair in town and afterwards i almost went straight home but something drew me further into town,
and what it was drawing me to was a chance encounter with a friend who i know through another, closer friend, and he was going to meet that very same closer friend...
D (who doesn't write books about fiat cars) being the closer friend, S & his girlfriend A the chance meeters... we sat in old compton street awhile and had tea (or coffee), S & A had just been to the anarchist bookfair which has moved this year to holloway road, i intended to pop in there on my way home but we chatted for longer than i'd realised, S was just showing me the books he'd bought there, interesting, anarchist stuff, it filled me with the desire for the bookfair and i raced off, but i got to holloway too late... one more year of missing the anarchist bookfair... i used to go several years ago when it was in conway hall, semio-text / AK books always had a stall there (i bet they still do) where i could find the most recent hakim bey books, hakim bey being staunchly anti-internet these days so it's hard to find him online... print only...
i also stocked up on a few more essentials, bike stuff, contact lenses... ate a great veggie shepherds pie in the amazon and read more of the sinatra book... and me & spski just watched the spy who came in from the cold - the richard burton flim.. moody & great... 1966...
so i'm pointing forward and back... i've installed the RAM now i'm i'm going to power down and get the DVD writer in there...
x
Friday, October 21, 2005
dieting
raced back from work to catch the posh pet food shop on tollington before it shut, the only place that sells the food we give balthazara, only to discover that they've sold out of the specific one we give her, they had the light version and being as people are always telling me she's overweight i thought no harm in getting her on a little diet this time around, in 6 weeks or so when she's eaten her way through that massive sack of food we'll see what she looks like and probably switch back... i hope she likes it...
found a new subject for the camera, although spski's newer camera may well takeover the filming duties, sadly the footage we shot tonight is a little too dark, but there are thrills and spills galore you just wait...
and i finished the field at long last, somehow the very last chapter kept making me sleepy, last night i tried to finish it in bed but i could feel my eyelids closing, then this afternoon after the catfood i tried again, and once again sleep overtook me before i could finish it, napping in the afternoon...
waking bleery eyed and confused...
x
found a new subject for the camera, although spski's newer camera may well takeover the filming duties, sadly the footage we shot tonight is a little too dark, but there are thrills and spills galore you just wait...
and i finished the field at long last, somehow the very last chapter kept making me sleepy, last night i tried to finish it in bed but i could feel my eyelids closing, then this afternoon after the catfood i tried again, and once again sleep overtook me before i could finish it, napping in the afternoon...
waking bleery eyed and confused...
x
poet laureate
thursday was a big cycling day, finsbury park to london bridge, then onto barons court, then back to finsbury park, and i lost my back light on the journey,
somewhat tired by it all today,
about to go to bed but just to mention, i video'd the poet laureate reading a poem for trafalgar day, mainly because he teaches someone i know...
strangely enough just as i was waiting for him to get going iain sinclair was on the other side (bbc2 as opposed to bbc1) talking about the lea valley and the travesty of the olympic stadium that will be built over it... flicking backwards and forwards between the almost poetry and our mr sinclair, strobe effect, half sentences, our nations poet didn't really do it for me in the end, but to be fair i've only just heard of him, maybe he's a grower...
so therefore today is trafalgar day... friday i'm guessing, although they could have been talking about yesterday (thursday) - funny, just because it's an event i'm thinking it's friday, normally i'd be steadfastly thursday until i've slept...
oh my bed...
x
somewhat tired by it all today,
about to go to bed but just to mention, i video'd the poet laureate reading a poem for trafalgar day, mainly because he teaches someone i know...
strangely enough just as i was waiting for him to get going iain sinclair was on the other side (bbc2 as opposed to bbc1) talking about the lea valley and the travesty of the olympic stadium that will be built over it... flicking backwards and forwards between the almost poetry and our mr sinclair, strobe effect, half sentences, our nations poet didn't really do it for me in the end, but to be fair i've only just heard of him, maybe he's a grower...
so therefore today is trafalgar day... friday i'm guessing, although they could have been talking about yesterday (thursday) - funny, just because it's an event i'm thinking it's friday, normally i'd be steadfastly thursday until i've slept...
oh my bed...
x
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
vile shambolic
had a lovely afternoon today, chatting away to P, drifting around her neighbourhood, beginning in an italian/cockney cafe on bethnal green road... pleasing to meet someone in the flesh who i met on the internet and for them to be really nice,
then i retreived my bike from victoria park and i cycled over to work where there was this open mic, the heavens opened mid journey and i got drenched, M had bought me a salad which i devoured as soon as i got there and which gradually returned some strength to my limbs...
i had a few lines more than i'd woken up with for the song and i sang it, somewhat shambolically, i really need to practise singing more, and find a different keyboard to play on other than that beast down in work's basement... i did alright and now i've performed it once in it's just for today state i can move on with it...
i got involved in a few improvisations and i moved the harmony in some interesting ways, nippy showed up and we did one of hers, P (ex-girlfriend P rather than new friend P) did a tune then used her voice to operate a sub-bass sound generated by a virtual instrument that fellow student P (another P) has just finished... crazy sounds, again found some good chords over B's drum'n'bass drumming...
then raced home for lost which was typically underwhelming... maybe i should just put it down... or download as many episodes as i can and watch them all back to back... be rid of the slowness of it...
lovely day weather wise - crazy rain, blue skies,
x
then i retreived my bike from victoria park and i cycled over to work where there was this open mic, the heavens opened mid journey and i got drenched, M had bought me a salad which i devoured as soon as i got there and which gradually returned some strength to my limbs...
i had a few lines more than i'd woken up with for the song and i sang it, somewhat shambolically, i really need to practise singing more, and find a different keyboard to play on other than that beast down in work's basement... i did alright and now i've performed it once in it's just for today state i can move on with it...
i got involved in a few improvisations and i moved the harmony in some interesting ways, nippy showed up and we did one of hers, P (ex-girlfriend P rather than new friend P) did a tune then used her voice to operate a sub-bass sound generated by a virtual instrument that fellow student P (another P) has just finished... crazy sounds, again found some good chords over B's drum'n'bass drumming...
then raced home for lost which was typically underwhelming... maybe i should just put it down... or download as many episodes as i can and watch them all back to back... be rid of the slowness of it...
lovely day weather wise - crazy rain, blue skies,
x
winning creating
W floopy came round to chat to spski about the circus, i sat for quite awhile listening to their conversation thinking about the tune i'm working on, how it might work lyrically, which is my current dilemma, i know broadly what i want it to be about, my challenge (as ever with my lyrics) is how to more clearly define the complexity of it and get to the simplest, truest expression of it...
there's an open mic tomorrow night (wednesday night) that i want to sing this song at, at the moment i have two lines for the chorus and nothing else, i'll probably scrap one of the lines, i may end up improvising some of the lyrics... something i did alot with harbour walls in the year or so it took me to pin down the lyrics...
after spski and W had spoken i challenged W to a game of chess, we've played on one occasion previously, i don't know why i didn't blog it back in july, he came round and we played 6 games in amongst spanish guests and much drinking and smoking, i won 5 games and we drew once... he's got better, i did beat him twice but the second game in particular was a taut, elegant affair, he got the upper hand but i prevailed...
x
there's an open mic tomorrow night (wednesday night) that i want to sing this song at, at the moment i have two lines for the chorus and nothing else, i'll probably scrap one of the lines, i may end up improvising some of the lyrics... something i did alot with harbour walls in the year or so it took me to pin down the lyrics...
after spski and W had spoken i challenged W to a game of chess, we've played on one occasion previously, i don't know why i didn't blog it back in july, he came round and we played 6 games in amongst spanish guests and much drinking and smoking, i won 5 games and we drew once... he's got better, i did beat him twice but the second game in particular was a taut, elegant affair, he got the upper hand but i prevailed...
x
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
hidden gears
coming to the end of the field by lynne mctaggart that P lent me so evangelically, i've been enjoying it and it has opened my mind a little about how consciousness might work and about the nature of reality, but i've found it quite frustrating... in several chapters she talks about very interesting research into ESP or other esoteric practises, then shoehorns the zero point field into the discussion without giving any reason to... so the stuff on the zero point field is great, the stuff on other things also great, but she's a little lazy in joining it together... i find...
day off today and like last week i slept really late in a slightly hungover way... i teach for hours and hours on a monday and a pint afterwards is so attractive, the combined effects of the work and the pint(s) eat into my tuesdays... but for now i also have wednesdays off as well so i have the space for it,
once up i went out into the world and bought all manner of esential things that i've been living without for too long, including a puncture repair kit...
while in the bike shop i enquired about my hidden gears, different shop from the first quote and a bigger price tag to do it, also a warning that i may want to just leave it as it is, if it's in a working gear now, (which it is) the risk is that by trying to access the other two gears it could get stuck in neutral... no thankyou... so my imaginary other gears continue to be just that, imaginary... may become real one day, maybe not, this echoes what the field talks about with sub-atomic waves, the famous cat of schrodinger that is in a box and is either dead or not according to a sub-atomic (or rather quantum) event, until schrodinger looks in the box the cat exists in both alive and dead states...
the act of looking forces the event to be either one or the other...
as the book is saying a few things about consciousness - relating to quantum events i'm struck by the act of creation, which for me is largely composing tunes... how the tunes exists in many potential states until i come along and really look at it when it collapses down to just one thing (eventually), i like the idea that in writing music (and lyrics) on one level i'm just fixing my gaze on something that's already there...
x
day off today and like last week i slept really late in a slightly hungover way... i teach for hours and hours on a monday and a pint afterwards is so attractive, the combined effects of the work and the pint(s) eat into my tuesdays... but for now i also have wednesdays off as well so i have the space for it,
once up i went out into the world and bought all manner of esential things that i've been living without for too long, including a puncture repair kit...
while in the bike shop i enquired about my hidden gears, different shop from the first quote and a bigger price tag to do it, also a warning that i may want to just leave it as it is, if it's in a working gear now, (which it is) the risk is that by trying to access the other two gears it could get stuck in neutral... no thankyou... so my imaginary other gears continue to be just that, imaginary... may become real one day, maybe not, this echoes what the field talks about with sub-atomic waves, the famous cat of schrodinger that is in a box and is either dead or not according to a sub-atomic (or rather quantum) event, until schrodinger looks in the box the cat exists in both alive and dead states...
the act of looking forces the event to be either one or the other...
as the book is saying a few things about consciousness - relating to quantum events i'm struck by the act of creation, which for me is largely composing tunes... how the tunes exists in many potential states until i come along and really look at it when it collapses down to just one thing (eventually), i like the idea that in writing music (and lyrics) on one level i'm just fixing my gaze on something that's already there...
x
Saturday, October 15, 2005
in my room
do my dreaming and my scheming...
ok so i'm pretty pleased with myself, got the router back on its feet and now finally i have the internet back... in my room...
so i'm listening to the beach boys tune of the same name...
do my crying and my sighing, laugh at yesterday...
G bought me a cake, really knows how to please me she does, not sure what the occasion is but cake is always welcome...
and then two random meetings:
firstly on thrusday night, spending my last fiver on a masala dosa with no peas in jai on stroud green road they didn't have a table for me at first, then two other people took the table they'd set for me... stood up as they prepared the food, reading from the field, they asked me to share a larger table with two others, i agreed and these other two, A & A, brothers, turned out to be really good company for an hour or so...
scottish, with very scottish names, the local A had just launched his designed product at a cycle show @ excel that day, the other A commutes 100 miles a day on his motorbike to work for a network company... i'd just got the helpful reply to my router query that day and it was nice to talk with A about it... very accomadating he was... they had a bottle of wine which they shared with me, we ended up having a great conversation about all sorts, local A using the word patina which is new to me, describing objects, i like objects with sincerity...
i hope to meet him again, an interesting guy, as was his brother,
and then today once i'd sorted the router and posted briefly i went out to do the filming from the park that i do, lovely day for it, i was just rounding up, filming the tree on the path back towards tollington way when a man started talking to me about the area... it's all changed, hasn't it? it turned out that he knew an awful lot about the neighbourhood, he'd lived on inglebury road as a child, which doesn't exist anymore, i finished the filming and we walked back to his flat on hornsey, him pointing out different things, the names of road as they were, when they were changed... back at his flat he showed me ordnance survey maps of the area from 1867 and 1914, birdbath road appearing in between the two maps, me & spski had narrowed it down to the 1890's when our house was built, on the strength of meeting I today, me & spski are going to have a history afternoon one day soon where we visit the islington museum as well as the archives that I told me about, i'd really like spski to meet I...
a perfect day and so nice to have an interesting conversation with a stranger, the universe working in my favour this week obviously...
x
ok so i'm pretty pleased with myself, got the router back on its feet and now finally i have the internet back... in my room...
so i'm listening to the beach boys tune of the same name...
do my crying and my sighing, laugh at yesterday...
G bought me a cake, really knows how to please me she does, not sure what the occasion is but cake is always welcome...
and then two random meetings:
firstly on thrusday night, spending my last fiver on a masala dosa with no peas in jai on stroud green road they didn't have a table for me at first, then two other people took the table they'd set for me... stood up as they prepared the food, reading from the field, they asked me to share a larger table with two others, i agreed and these other two, A & A, brothers, turned out to be really good company for an hour or so...
scottish, with very scottish names, the local A had just launched his designed product at a cycle show @ excel that day, the other A commutes 100 miles a day on his motorbike to work for a network company... i'd just got the helpful reply to my router query that day and it was nice to talk with A about it... very accomadating he was... they had a bottle of wine which they shared with me, we ended up having a great conversation about all sorts, local A using the word patina which is new to me, describing objects, i like objects with sincerity...
i hope to meet him again, an interesting guy, as was his brother,
and then today once i'd sorted the router and posted briefly i went out to do the filming from the park that i do, lovely day for it, i was just rounding up, filming the tree on the path back towards tollington way when a man started talking to me about the area... it's all changed, hasn't it? it turned out that he knew an awful lot about the neighbourhood, he'd lived on inglebury road as a child, which doesn't exist anymore, i finished the filming and we walked back to his flat on hornsey, him pointing out different things, the names of road as they were, when they were changed... back at his flat he showed me ordnance survey maps of the area from 1867 and 1914, birdbath road appearing in between the two maps, me & spski had narrowed it down to the 1890's when our house was built, on the strength of meeting I today, me & spski are going to have a history afternoon one day soon where we visit the islington museum as well as the archives that I told me about, i'd really like spski to meet I...
a perfect day and so nice to have an interesting conversation with a stranger, the universe working in my favour this week obviously...
x
welcome back
i got a very useful reply to my router question which has led me to go and by a new power adapter for the beast... quite expensive so the guy in the shop agreed that if it didn't fix the router i could bring it back...
and i'm blogging right now via the router... something i haven't done for a week of more...
just about to go out and catch this amazing sunshine through the trees then i'll come back and set this network up again... finally check my emails...
why D-link couldn't tell me that it could be the power supply that was faulty i don't know... very crucial piece of information... the little fella is now sat on the desk in front of me blinking away happily...
thankyou idc thankyou...
x
and i'm blogging right now via the router... something i haven't done for a week of more...
just about to go out and catch this amazing sunshine through the trees then i'll come back and set this network up again... finally check my emails...
why D-link couldn't tell me that it could be the power supply that was faulty i don't know... very crucial piece of information... the little fella is now sat on the desk in front of me blinking away happily...
thankyou idc thankyou...
x
billy childish and the solitary hats
and don't forget to remind to tell you about the scots men...
so tonight me & spski made it over to tufnell park to see billy boy, playing at the boston arms - the dirty water club...
the early part of the gig we were sat down on the back of the bench, a good view, the buff medways playing with a new bass player who did great backing vocals as well as some mean, meaty basslines... a couple of random men wondering around wearing hats were the solitary hats, no sooner did one of them find his friends than another man who was neither hatted, nor solitary, but who belonged to the name became another one... i was just pointing him out to spski when the original solitary hat wondered past, still solitary, still hatted, perfect comedy timing...
it doesn't take much to amuse me & spski...
the gig was rocking, just as spski predicted, the new bass player being originally from the prisoners, who spski tells me became the james tailor quartet...
we made our way to be part of the people and near the end i was reminded just how much i like yelling in a crowd, their version of jimi hendricks's fire got me jumping up and down, and just as they were playing almost their last tune G turned up, she of stubborn fame... i'd given up on her but she was true to her nature and she persevered with her mad after work journey... arriving just in time to see them, i think her band would go down well there...
quite a night.. great to see some good old rock'n'roll, particularly after seeing his film last week...
he sure can play a gig...
x
so tonight me & spski made it over to tufnell park to see billy boy, playing at the boston arms - the dirty water club...
the early part of the gig we were sat down on the back of the bench, a good view, the buff medways playing with a new bass player who did great backing vocals as well as some mean, meaty basslines... a couple of random men wondering around wearing hats were the solitary hats, no sooner did one of them find his friends than another man who was neither hatted, nor solitary, but who belonged to the name became another one... i was just pointing him out to spski when the original solitary hat wondered past, still solitary, still hatted, perfect comedy timing...
it doesn't take much to amuse me & spski...
the gig was rocking, just as spski predicted, the new bass player being originally from the prisoners, who spski tells me became the james tailor quartet...
we made our way to be part of the people and near the end i was reminded just how much i like yelling in a crowd, their version of jimi hendricks's fire got me jumping up and down, and just as they were playing almost their last tune G turned up, she of stubborn fame... i'd given up on her but she was true to her nature and she persevered with her mad after work journey... arriving just in time to see them, i think her band would go down well there...
quite a night.. great to see some good old rock'n'roll, particularly after seeing his film last week...
he sure can play a gig...
x
Thursday, October 13, 2005
tree lined
so wet, this morning, quite amazing just how wet i was when i got to work, taught for 3 hours and my jeans were still damp by the end... hello autumn cycling...
hello the need for some proper cold weather cycling clothes...
the northern line was broken this morning so i had less than half my class, really hardcore lesson as well, going through the different scales and the theory around them... not that handy to have to repeat it to the other students, but interesting to teach this lot, the different ways that different people struggle or not...
then by the time i set off for hammersmith in the afternoon the rain had stopped, my route just about settled now for that journey, along the river, then over westminster bridge and through the parks... so lovely, even on this grey day, the trees just beginning the autumn change... st james, green, hyde, kensington gardens...
my once weekly trip through all that, tracing the change...
the end of the journey to hammersmith less nice, all the way along kensington high street, but not too bad...
then the afternoon lesson really good, mainly spent learning the different tunes the students had brought in to teach to them... gaining respect from the students by doing something i do well...
then after we put mine & D's bike into the back of J's car and we drove up to the william IV pub in kensal rise, D who split the free cinema tickets with me at the beginning of the summer, drank a little and in fact M (drums) came along while we were there to pick my brain about teaching music technology, always nice to see the man, hopefully we'll start playing again soon... D always good fun and J - new boy at hammersmith, also a jazz pianist, must battle him some day soon...
all this left me right by the grand union canal and the sun had gone down by now, the early gloom of the evening down on the canal where there are few lights.. i raced homewards, so happy to be cycling again (spski helped me out with the bike earlier in the week) particularly on the canal at the end of the day...
x
hello the need for some proper cold weather cycling clothes...
the northern line was broken this morning so i had less than half my class, really hardcore lesson as well, going through the different scales and the theory around them... not that handy to have to repeat it to the other students, but interesting to teach this lot, the different ways that different people struggle or not...
then by the time i set off for hammersmith in the afternoon the rain had stopped, my route just about settled now for that journey, along the river, then over westminster bridge and through the parks... so lovely, even on this grey day, the trees just beginning the autumn change... st james, green, hyde, kensington gardens...
my once weekly trip through all that, tracing the change...
the end of the journey to hammersmith less nice, all the way along kensington high street, but not too bad...
then the afternoon lesson really good, mainly spent learning the different tunes the students had brought in to teach to them... gaining respect from the students by doing something i do well...
then after we put mine & D's bike into the back of J's car and we drove up to the william IV pub in kensal rise, D who split the free cinema tickets with me at the beginning of the summer, drank a little and in fact M (drums) came along while we were there to pick my brain about teaching music technology, always nice to see the man, hopefully we'll start playing again soon... D always good fun and J - new boy at hammersmith, also a jazz pianist, must battle him some day soon...
all this left me right by the grand union canal and the sun had gone down by now, the early gloom of the evening down on the canal where there are few lights.. i raced homewards, so happy to be cycling again (spski helped me out with the bike earlier in the week) particularly on the canal at the end of the day...
x
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
router dead or dying videoing rain
second day off on a row, my midweek holiday, dominated by trying to fix the router...
when we bought it 3 years ago it cost us over £150... the same model i could get now for £30... but then that's no big surprise...
i've practically given up on it... if no one responds to my post over on DSLreports then i'm binning it... or at least giving it to someone who might cannibalise it...
so i'm still without internet in my room, just this computer in the basement... later today i'm going to find a way to get the cable in to my room and connect up for a few hours, almost a weeks worth of emails - (knowing my luck there will be 2 emails, both from my work) - a chance to upload some of the pictures i've been taking...
really rainy day today in london town and i was putting my camera on a plastic bag on the tarmac and holding my umbrella above it to video puddles... sadly no video of the sky today, although i'd like to solve the problem at some pont, interesting one, how to protect the camera while still being open to the sky..?
and i'm reading a book P has lent me called the field - i forget the name of the writer... about the zero point field that was discovered in quantum physics in the early part of the 20th century, it's implications in the modern world... i was suspicious of it at first, pop science can irritate me sometimes, but it's proving to be really good, interesting... P loves it and is being quite evangelistic with it...
G has lent me enough money to survive until the credit card arrives on friday but i'm not out tonight celebrating bo's birthday and it still annoys me how they've messed with my life... but i don't want to get started on that again...
the e e cummings & fernando pessoa books of poetry that i'm getting as soon as it arrives... bring it on...
x
when we bought it 3 years ago it cost us over £150... the same model i could get now for £30... but then that's no big surprise...
i've practically given up on it... if no one responds to my post over on DSLreports then i'm binning it... or at least giving it to someone who might cannibalise it...
so i'm still without internet in my room, just this computer in the basement... later today i'm going to find a way to get the cable in to my room and connect up for a few hours, almost a weeks worth of emails - (knowing my luck there will be 2 emails, both from my work) - a chance to upload some of the pictures i've been taking...
really rainy day today in london town and i was putting my camera on a plastic bag on the tarmac and holding my umbrella above it to video puddles... sadly no video of the sky today, although i'd like to solve the problem at some pont, interesting one, how to protect the camera while still being open to the sky..?
and i'm reading a book P has lent me called the field - i forget the name of the writer... about the zero point field that was discovered in quantum physics in the early part of the 20th century, it's implications in the modern world... i was suspicious of it at first, pop science can irritate me sometimes, but it's proving to be really good, interesting... P loves it and is being quite evangelistic with it...
G has lent me enough money to survive until the credit card arrives on friday but i'm not out tonight celebrating bo's birthday and it still annoys me how they've messed with my life... but i don't want to get started on that again...
the e e cummings & fernando pessoa books of poetry that i'm getting as soon as it arrives... bring it on...
x
syntax
i'd just spent my last £4 on my breakfast and manolis was talking to N about language & education... i waved my hand to say goodbye and he started talking to me about language & education, i love talking to manolis so i lingered a little...
after a while he said where are you going that is more important than this? sit down... which i did, seeing the logic in what he said... i was only going to go to the park to video more sky, which i did anyway, just a little later...
he explained about sentence construction, he talked about the word investigate, refering to vestiges, and the business of looking at vestiges... as an example of a sentence he used longcat says that he is stupid which i had said a little before (and which i am)...
after all this, N was saying lesson over... manolis stood up and said after my lesson i will now do some hammering... which he proceeded to do...
x
after a while he said where are you going that is more important than this? sit down... which i did, seeing the logic in what he said... i was only going to go to the park to video more sky, which i did anyway, just a little later...
he explained about sentence construction, he talked about the word investigate, refering to vestiges, and the business of looking at vestiges... as an example of a sentence he used longcat says that he is stupid which i had said a little before (and which i am)...
after all this, N was saying lesson over... manolis stood up and said after my lesson i will now do some hammering... which he proceeded to do...
x
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
inept
just how many ways can lloydstsb prove themselves to be inept in this small operation?
the delivering to me of my new credit card... which i decided to get in order to survive until i get paid on the 18th of this month... which was supposed to arrive within 7 - 10 working days of ordering... i ordered it exactly four weeks before pay day... thinking it should get to me two weeks before...
and trusting that they would be true to their word i didn't ring them until 10 working days had passed, (in fact it was 13 working days by the time i phoned, last friday)... whereupon they said that they'd given it to the courier company on the 29th of september... implying a kind of well we've done our bit smugness, it's the courier company that's at fault...
along with the smugness the woman i spoke to assured me that she'd spoken to the courier company and it would arrive by tuesday at the latest...
today is that tuesday... 15 working days after ordering, one week before i get paid... no credit card, so i ring them and after awhile i get put through to the courier company who start organising when & where it will be delivered, no sooner than thursday...
in the scheme of things this means i won't get it until friday, which is only a few days until i get paid...
i cannot begin to express how much this irritates me... i used to work on the phone and therefore i'm almost always careful to treat telephone customer service people with respect, but i have been rude to these lloydstsb people and the worst of it is that noone has apologised to me, the bank has assured me it's done it's bit, the courier company has told me it's not their fault...
...
(rendered speechless)
...
the delivering to me of my new credit card... which i decided to get in order to survive until i get paid on the 18th of this month... which was supposed to arrive within 7 - 10 working days of ordering... i ordered it exactly four weeks before pay day... thinking it should get to me two weeks before...
and trusting that they would be true to their word i didn't ring them until 10 working days had passed, (in fact it was 13 working days by the time i phoned, last friday)... whereupon they said that they'd given it to the courier company on the 29th of september... implying a kind of well we've done our bit smugness, it's the courier company that's at fault...
along with the smugness the woman i spoke to assured me that she'd spoken to the courier company and it would arrive by tuesday at the latest...
today is that tuesday... 15 working days after ordering, one week before i get paid... no credit card, so i ring them and after awhile i get put through to the courier company who start organising when & where it will be delivered, no sooner than thursday...
in the scheme of things this means i won't get it until friday, which is only a few days until i get paid...
i cannot begin to express how much this irritates me... i used to work on the phone and therefore i'm almost always careful to treat telephone customer service people with respect, but i have been rude to these lloydstsb people and the worst of it is that noone has apologised to me, the bank has assured me it's done it's bit, the courier company has told me it's not their fault...
...
(rendered speechless)
...
duchess
i'm drunk...
yes i am...
taught my longest teaching day and because P turns 27 tomorrow (well, today) - we got drunk after class tonight... no money but a couple of students buying me drinks...
and on my home from the tube i saw duchess... that beautiful cat that sits alongside balthazara in my song... i haven't seen her since christmas... she was just sat there, on someone's windowsill... looking at me as though she hadn't been missing for 10 months... she consented to sniff my hand but was standoffish when i tried to stroke her...
nice to have her back in my life...
nice to get drunk...
lovely conversation tonight with different students about the module i teach, the inspiration it gives and the different ways the inspiration arrives...
x
yes i am...
taught my longest teaching day and because P turns 27 tomorrow (well, today) - we got drunk after class tonight... no money but a couple of students buying me drinks...
and on my home from the tube i saw duchess... that beautiful cat that sits alongside balthazara in my song... i haven't seen her since christmas... she was just sat there, on someone's windowsill... looking at me as though she hadn't been missing for 10 months... she consented to sniff my hand but was standoffish when i tried to stroke her...
nice to have her back in my life...
nice to get drunk...
lovely conversation tonight with different students about the module i teach, the inspiration it gives and the different ways the inspiration arrives...
x
Sunday, October 09, 2005
bookshop visit all arranged for me
i took the £10 bike and spent £10 on it... whole new inner tube for the back wheel, which apparently might have gears inside it (in the drum in the middle) - possible route towards gears therefore...?
they fitted the inner tube, i cycled off with glee...
how different the world looks when i have a working bike, strange to so depend on something else for this confidence... more on this later...
so i decide to go to the RFH to meet S & bo, just briefly before they go to a xenakis concert, i set off on my bike and it starts to rain almost immediately... undaunted i cycle on... although thinking fondly of the cycle rain poncho thing i saw today in the bike shop... i cycle through camdem, through somerstown, as i'm getting to euston i can feel my back tire deflating... i can't believe it - and in fact don't believe it for a little while but it becomes unmistakable... i get to within spitting distance of great almond st hospital and i give up, the tire too low now, i phone bo and there's no time now to see them, i phone D, who i was going to try and see after bo & S (the pigs)... i see another bike locked to the railings so i lock mine there too...
and now my bike is not fixed my confidence leaves me, i don't want to see anyone...
i calm down a little bit, all hot and bothered, i wonder what i'm going to do, get a bus home? the number 19 goes from there to mine, walk the bike home? i start to want to find a bicycle pump, to get me part of the way home with the bike...
i find a bookshop, that is open, at 7pm...
piles of books everywhere, 2nd hand, a few new ones that he's published, he being M who chats to me, about everything, he lives above the shop, we talk about london, about how in the mid19th century the city planners decided to stop london being a residential city, evicted huge numbers of people, artisans, shopkeepers, who had been trading from and living in the same space, turfed them out to just beyond the city boundary (the london wall i guess)... talk about africa, childrens books, consciousness, a very interesting looking book that he's published that i might go back for - a lexicon of writings on consciousness - particularly in relation to computers - artificial consciousness, some writer called tallin i think...
he really reminded me of SJ whose book i still have in my room, yijing user and source of information for... bookish - the notion of following a papertrail as SJ put it, tracing an idea back through documents... M and SJ definately cut from the same cloth...
he recomended i try in the pub for a bicycle pump - which he didn't have - i did try the pub to no avail, i walked back to my bike much cheered by the surprise bookshop and conversation, still hoping i'll meet someone and borrow a pump...
van morrison's astral weeks playing on my shuffle, beside you as i walk up to the childrens hospital and notice to my delight that the bike beside mine has a bicycle pump on it..
look, i know that you think you're seeing the pigs tonight but actually i want you to find this bookshop and meet this guy, so you're going to have a puncture right by his shop, he'll be there, you'll talk to him, then to get back i'm going to make sure there's a bicycle pump right where you left your bike, don't worry...
(he made me do it)
x
they fitted the inner tube, i cycled off with glee...
how different the world looks when i have a working bike, strange to so depend on something else for this confidence... more on this later...
so i decide to go to the RFH to meet S & bo, just briefly before they go to a xenakis concert, i set off on my bike and it starts to rain almost immediately... undaunted i cycle on... although thinking fondly of the cycle rain poncho thing i saw today in the bike shop... i cycle through camdem, through somerstown, as i'm getting to euston i can feel my back tire deflating... i can't believe it - and in fact don't believe it for a little while but it becomes unmistakable... i get to within spitting distance of great almond st hospital and i give up, the tire too low now, i phone bo and there's no time now to see them, i phone D, who i was going to try and see after bo & S (the pigs)... i see another bike locked to the railings so i lock mine there too...
and now my bike is not fixed my confidence leaves me, i don't want to see anyone...
i calm down a little bit, all hot and bothered, i wonder what i'm going to do, get a bus home? the number 19 goes from there to mine, walk the bike home? i start to want to find a bicycle pump, to get me part of the way home with the bike...
i find a bookshop, that is open, at 7pm...
piles of books everywhere, 2nd hand, a few new ones that he's published, he being M who chats to me, about everything, he lives above the shop, we talk about london, about how in the mid19th century the city planners decided to stop london being a residential city, evicted huge numbers of people, artisans, shopkeepers, who had been trading from and living in the same space, turfed them out to just beyond the city boundary (the london wall i guess)... talk about africa, childrens books, consciousness, a very interesting looking book that he's published that i might go back for - a lexicon of writings on consciousness - particularly in relation to computers - artificial consciousness, some writer called tallin i think...
he really reminded me of SJ whose book i still have in my room, yijing user and source of information for... bookish - the notion of following a papertrail as SJ put it, tracing an idea back through documents... M and SJ definately cut from the same cloth...
he recomended i try in the pub for a bicycle pump - which he didn't have - i did try the pub to no avail, i walked back to my bike much cheered by the surprise bookshop and conversation, still hoping i'll meet someone and borrow a pump...
van morrison's astral weeks playing on my shuffle, beside you as i walk up to the childrens hospital and notice to my delight that the bike beside mine has a bicycle pump on it..
look, i know that you think you're seeing the pigs tonight but actually i want you to find this bookshop and meet this guy, so you're going to have a puncture right by his shop, he'll be there, you'll talk to him, then to get back i'm going to make sure there's a bicycle pump right where you left your bike, don't worry...
(he made me do it)
x
Saturday, October 08, 2005
internet troubles
our router is sick by the looks of things...
the router... my bicycle...
so i've just connected this computer directly to the cable modem to post this and check my chess moves and try and find out some wisdom on the router...
(luckily paulette just missed a killer move... left myself a little too open i did...)
a few days ago i was walking around the royal northern gardens, which is the name for that little bit of park by the beaux arts building... i lay my camera down on it's back and video'd the sky through the trees from a couple of locations, one of which was a rock, the other just the grass, i made a little rectangle of four twigs on the grass so i could find the place again... i like the idea of filming a minute or two from each place, twice a week or so, seeing how it changes...
so yesterday after work i got the 17 bus back and it dropped me just by there, i revisited the stone, set the camera up started video'ing the sky again from the same spot while i looked for the rectangle... and was delighted to find that it was still there... so that little series is progressing, found another spot as well and took the first video from there...
don't know where it's headed... don't need to...
for some reason you don't know... what love is... until you've learnt the meaning of the blues... has been going round my head recently, we've got an open mic @ work in a couple of weeks and i'll probably sing it there, along with this tune i'm working on now, which was vaguely intended to be part of the video project, before i realised that the video should come first, that being the point of the project... somehow singing you don't know... gives me an inroad into finding some lyrics/melody for my current thing...
x
didn't go and get grace yesterday as i'd planned, financial considerations... i'm sure it'll happen another weekend, i spoke to her and she is getting more & more articulate on the phone, am i coming to your house?... living within my means breaks my heart a little...
it meant that i could accept three more hours work yesterday afternoon, with nippy, which was very helpful and also fun... a couple of times in the afternoon i found myself emitting that high pitched - air escaping laugh from something either M or nippy said to me... i just love how stupid i can be with them...
x
the router... my bicycle...
so i've just connected this computer directly to the cable modem to post this and check my chess moves and try and find out some wisdom on the router...
(luckily paulette just missed a killer move... left myself a little too open i did...)
a few days ago i was walking around the royal northern gardens, which is the name for that little bit of park by the beaux arts building... i lay my camera down on it's back and video'd the sky through the trees from a couple of locations, one of which was a rock, the other just the grass, i made a little rectangle of four twigs on the grass so i could find the place again... i like the idea of filming a minute or two from each place, twice a week or so, seeing how it changes...
so yesterday after work i got the 17 bus back and it dropped me just by there, i revisited the stone, set the camera up started video'ing the sky again from the same spot while i looked for the rectangle... and was delighted to find that it was still there... so that little series is progressing, found another spot as well and took the first video from there...
don't know where it's headed... don't need to...
for some reason you don't know... what love is... until you've learnt the meaning of the blues... has been going round my head recently, we've got an open mic @ work in a couple of weeks and i'll probably sing it there, along with this tune i'm working on now, which was vaguely intended to be part of the video project, before i realised that the video should come first, that being the point of the project... somehow singing you don't know... gives me an inroad into finding some lyrics/melody for my current thing...
x
didn't go and get grace yesterday as i'd planned, financial considerations... i'm sure it'll happen another weekend, i spoke to her and she is getting more & more articulate on the phone, am i coming to your house?... living within my means breaks my heart a little...
it meant that i could accept three more hours work yesterday afternoon, with nippy, which was very helpful and also fun... a couple of times in the afternoon i found myself emitting that high pitched - air escaping laugh from something either M or nippy said to me... i just love how stupid i can be with them...
x
Thursday, October 06, 2005
patience billy boy
as someone said to me recently... it's not that i'm patient, it's that i'm stubborn... sadly, i'm not stubborn...
and my patience has momentarily failed me...
i'm waiting to recieve something in the post that will make my life possible... when i ordered it they told me it would take 5 - maybe 10 - working days, i've just phoned them and they say at the latest it will with me by tuesday - which is 15 working days later...
if they had told me this back then i would have done things slightly differently...
on top of which my bike has a mystery flat tire, with no puncture we can find (i wouldn't trust myself to find it but spski has a way with bicycles and he couldn't find it...) which means that it's the valve that's broke, which means a whole nother inner tube... which is fine... only i can't get it until this thing arrives and in the mean time i'm having to spend money on tube travel which is such a waste...
you know when a couple of things in life just aren't working out right..?
not the right moment to start blogging, right after that where the f**k is my ****? conversation... i should just play the piano for awhile, calm down, maybe run a bath...
the cold still in me,
me & spski went to see a great film last night called billy childish is dead, about the chatham based poet, musician, painter... who was there answering questions afterwards... very interesting and intelligent man, i think he's playing in tufnell park next friday night, and if he is i'm going to try and get along, crazy rock'n'roller that he is...
actually the man who made the film was a curiously inspirational man...he was clearly a fan of billy's and he'd borrowed his brothers camera and approached billy childish with the idea for the film, to which billy's wife said forget it, look at him he's useless (or some such - as recounted by billy last night), but billy said alright then, if you want to...
and this geeky bloke then spent 4 years on the dole, filming various people talking about billy... (just how many times am i going to use the word billy?)... edited it together using premiere.. finished it up with a little help from someone else and there it was last night, part of the raindance film festival...
just shows you really can do what you want to, with the materials you've got at your disposal, whatever it is you've got... very much what the man himself was saying last night, we should all be making things...
a marvellous counter current against my financial woes...
bless that billy boy...
x
and my patience has momentarily failed me...
i'm waiting to recieve something in the post that will make my life possible... when i ordered it they told me it would take 5 - maybe 10 - working days, i've just phoned them and they say at the latest it will with me by tuesday - which is 15 working days later...
if they had told me this back then i would have done things slightly differently...
on top of which my bike has a mystery flat tire, with no puncture we can find (i wouldn't trust myself to find it but spski has a way with bicycles and he couldn't find it...) which means that it's the valve that's broke, which means a whole nother inner tube... which is fine... only i can't get it until this thing arrives and in the mean time i'm having to spend money on tube travel which is such a waste...
you know when a couple of things in life just aren't working out right..?
not the right moment to start blogging, right after that where the f**k is my ****? conversation... i should just play the piano for awhile, calm down, maybe run a bath...
the cold still in me,
me & spski went to see a great film last night called billy childish is dead, about the chatham based poet, musician, painter... who was there answering questions afterwards... very interesting and intelligent man, i think he's playing in tufnell park next friday night, and if he is i'm going to try and get along, crazy rock'n'roller that he is...
actually the man who made the film was a curiously inspirational man...he was clearly a fan of billy's and he'd borrowed his brothers camera and approached billy childish with the idea for the film, to which billy's wife said forget it, look at him he's useless (or some such - as recounted by billy last night), but billy said alright then, if you want to...
and this geeky bloke then spent 4 years on the dole, filming various people talking about billy... (just how many times am i going to use the word billy?)... edited it together using premiere.. finished it up with a little help from someone else and there it was last night, part of the raindance film festival...
just shows you really can do what you want to, with the materials you've got at your disposal, whatever it is you've got... very much what the man himself was saying last night, we should all be making things...
a marvellous counter current against my financial woes...
bless that billy boy...
x
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
full house slight cold ramble
so it's here, this moment...
the wanderer's have returned, we've even got a wanderer from outside currently staying with us, at it's quietest in the last two weeks we had three people staying here, now we have eight...
lovely to have spski back... he returned on sunday just before josiah & grace left, last night he would occasionally beckon to someone in the kitchen and draw them closer... closer, still to the packet of rich tea biscuits that was standing on the table... then he'd slowly lift the top of the packet, pulling the whole thing up and revealing that it was empty and that it was covering the pepper grinder...
only spski...
spanish M & edge have also returned (although i haven't yet clapped eyes on edge, i guess he's sleeping) from spain, M has a worse cold than me, and is very funny, aussie K is the outside wanderer and her fellow pirate (& ex-resident) C was just round picking up her sewing machine from M,
the four of us in the kitchen, me just woken up, in a towel, ave, senator says M, in her pink pajama's, the making of a cup of tea for me & C, not for M, although there some confusion, while K cooks something... it had echoes of a marx brothers routine...
G's birthday yesterday, we watched sex, lies & videotape together, she 24 now, the youngest in our household which spans 18 years... i'm tempted to add together our ages like they do in newspapers - or for prison sentences for groups, only i don't have the mental reserves just yet, maybe after another cup of tea...
that guy who got sentenced for complicity in the 11th of september attacks, apparently he got 30 years of so, the prosecution wanted him to get something like 72,000 years...?
ok, i'm rambling, saw P and she cut my hair & filed my fingernails (the fingernails on the tube), i went up to see her new place in hendon, as a whole the squat is not as nice as holly lodge where they were before, but her part of it is much nicer, i hope she's there for awhile...
oh and me & spski are going to see billy childish is dead as part of the raindance film festival tonight, with the man himself doing a Q&A & an acoustic set...
will be great x
the wanderer's have returned, we've even got a wanderer from outside currently staying with us, at it's quietest in the last two weeks we had three people staying here, now we have eight...
lovely to have spski back... he returned on sunday just before josiah & grace left, last night he would occasionally beckon to someone in the kitchen and draw them closer... closer, still to the packet of rich tea biscuits that was standing on the table... then he'd slowly lift the top of the packet, pulling the whole thing up and revealing that it was empty and that it was covering the pepper grinder...
only spski...
spanish M & edge have also returned (although i haven't yet clapped eyes on edge, i guess he's sleeping) from spain, M has a worse cold than me, and is very funny, aussie K is the outside wanderer and her fellow pirate (& ex-resident) C was just round picking up her sewing machine from M,
the four of us in the kitchen, me just woken up, in a towel, ave, senator says M, in her pink pajama's, the making of a cup of tea for me & C, not for M, although there some confusion, while K cooks something... it had echoes of a marx brothers routine...
G's birthday yesterday, we watched sex, lies & videotape together, she 24 now, the youngest in our household which spans 18 years... i'm tempted to add together our ages like they do in newspapers - or for prison sentences for groups, only i don't have the mental reserves just yet, maybe after another cup of tea...
that guy who got sentenced for complicity in the 11th of september attacks, apparently he got 30 years of so, the prosecution wanted him to get something like 72,000 years...?
ok, i'm rambling, saw P and she cut my hair & filed my fingernails (the fingernails on the tube), i went up to see her new place in hendon, as a whole the squat is not as nice as holly lodge where they were before, but her part of it is much nicer, i hope she's there for awhile...
oh and me & spski are going to see billy childish is dead as part of the raindance film festival tonight, with the man himself doing a Q&A & an acoustic set...
will be great x
Sunday, October 02, 2005
grace rainbow singing
so with this little blog i've gone passed the 600 count since july 24th or whenever it was... although it is a little unbalanced because of the last 15 visits i've had, 11 of them have been carol, she of friendless tag... she appears to visit me with an almost missionary zeal, don't get me wrong, i do appreciate the attention...
josiah & grace will be just now setting off from victoria on a train bound for brighton, we did the christening, we were great, really nice piano they've got at st mellitus, really nice to see them, grace truly a nutter, i'm having her next friday for the night then T (her dad) is picking her up from me and taking her back down to brighton on saturday... good arrangement, about time too that me & T coordinate a little...
this picture is little blurred but i find it so pleasing i've put it up here, grace listening to my shuffle through the head- phones that i wear in the street...
they arrived yesterday with T just as i was out taking pictures of the amazing sky... i'd been blogging i think, i turned round and just saw this amazing light coming through the rain... had to get out there under an umbrella and take pictures...
and before i'd even got out of my street i saw the loveliest rainbow, even with the second outer rim... the clouds really luminous... the sun lighting up the underside of them as it dipped to the horizon...
yes please...
x
josiah & grace will be just now setting off from victoria on a train bound for brighton, we did the christening, we were great, really nice piano they've got at st mellitus, really nice to see them, grace truly a nutter, i'm having her next friday for the night then T (her dad) is picking her up from me and taking her back down to brighton on saturday... good arrangement, about time too that me & T coordinate a little...
this picture is little blurred but i find it so pleasing i've put it up here, grace listening to my shuffle through the head- phones that i wear in the street... they arrived yesterday with T just as i was out taking pictures of the amazing sky... i'd been blogging i think, i turned round and just saw this amazing light coming through the rain... had to get out there under an umbrella and take pictures...
and before i'd even got out of my street i saw the loveliest rainbow, even with the second outer rim... the clouds really luminous... the sun lighting up the underside of them as it dipped to the horizon...yes please...
x
Saturday, October 01, 2005
encryption & geocaching
firstly thankyou to my many commenters on yesterdays post... in an indirect way the friendless tag has already increased my comments... still not overly impressed with the way it's done, noone likes to be told they're friendless, even in an effort to get more friends...
todays little journey begins with this post by j_s over in canada, she is one of three livejournal women who show up on my LJ friends page, one of whom is my sister felinity who also has a blog over here on blogger to document her knitting projects... i only got my little presence over on LJ so i could read felinity, vilebody completes the 3...
j_s's post is encrypted and i had a fun 15 minutes trying to work out the encryption, which i did by searching for individual words in the wider web, lucking out with geocaches whose hints use the same encryption and who give you the option of decrypting them... so i copied the encrypted and decrypted versions of the same text and worked out what was going on...
all very nice intellectual hunting, and this geocaches i found on the way...?
so i've registered with them, although i haven't left my room since i first heard of them so i haven't done anything more yet, there are a few london caches to be found... but i'm getting ahead of myself,
the way it works is you hide something, somewhere in the world, then give clues as to where it is on this site, other people can then find it - unwrap it - whatever it is, wrap it back up again and rehide it in the same spot for others to find... then they can leave you a comment...
kind of similar to bookcrossing which i still haven't done, where you leave a book in a public place with a url & a reference number inside the front cover, people who find it can go the website, type in the reference number and leave comments for you...
there is mention on the geocaches site about a GPS unit - which i don't have - i don't know if you need one to find the caches, or if us non-GPS humans can use our non-GPS senses to find them... maybe it's not so groovy after all...?
before my little internet journey today i went out into the world and ate really well @ manolis's before witnessing a huge and brief shower just as i got up to leave, it calmed down to a light rain and i went about my day, taking pictures (as ever), getting some rice milk in for grace, who's coming round today with her mum, (late as ever) to spend the night,
me & josiah are doing a song @ a christening in st mellitus tomorrow afternoon, big old church on tollington park very near me...
dusting off the suit for an hour or so...
x
todays little journey begins with this post by j_s over in canada, she is one of three livejournal women who show up on my LJ friends page, one of whom is my sister felinity who also has a blog over here on blogger to document her knitting projects... i only got my little presence over on LJ so i could read felinity, vilebody completes the 3...
j_s's post is encrypted and i had a fun 15 minutes trying to work out the encryption, which i did by searching for individual words in the wider web, lucking out with geocaches whose hints use the same encryption and who give you the option of decrypting them... so i copied the encrypted and decrypted versions of the same text and worked out what was going on...
all very nice intellectual hunting, and this geocaches i found on the way...?
so i've registered with them, although i haven't left my room since i first heard of them so i haven't done anything more yet, there are a few london caches to be found... but i'm getting ahead of myself,
the way it works is you hide something, somewhere in the world, then give clues as to where it is on this site, other people can then find it - unwrap it - whatever it is, wrap it back up again and rehide it in the same spot for others to find... then they can leave you a comment...
kind of similar to bookcrossing which i still haven't done, where you leave a book in a public place with a url & a reference number inside the front cover, people who find it can go the website, type in the reference number and leave comments for you...
there is mention on the geocaches site about a GPS unit - which i don't have - i don't know if you need one to find the caches, or if us non-GPS humans can use our non-GPS senses to find them... maybe it's not so groovy after all...?
before my little internet journey today i went out into the world and ate really well @ manolis's before witnessing a huge and brief shower just as i got up to leave, it calmed down to a light rain and i went about my day, taking pictures (as ever), getting some rice milk in for grace, who's coming round today with her mum, (late as ever) to spend the night,
me & josiah are doing a song @ a christening in st mellitus tomorrow afternoon, big old church on tollington park very near me...
dusting off the suit for an hour or so...
x
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