last day of august

& i've got 4 free cinema tickets that run out today...

probably only going to use one of them, lying to the vue westend & buying a ticket for the break-up but going to see harsh times once inside...

found a couple of ex-students on myspace, talented individuals who i hope i'll make some music with someday soon...

about to set up the mics for this week's improvisation...

the soprano's starting tonight on E4...

there you go... bullet points...

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i get scared

a new tune has sprung up... i certain emotional space i was in on monday called out to be described and musically it's become something blues tinged and lovely...

lyrically very limited - just those three words repeated - but the memory of the feeling is there and the rest of the lyrics will grow from that...

saw lady in the water tonight and i loved it... timeout hated it so i went in with low expectations and it pleased me immensely... full of good people.. it seemed to me that the director played one of the parts... although i'm not sure...

ok, off to get dinah...

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aftermath of carnival

youtube couldn't deal with it so it's on googlevideo...

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the red circle - extravagant wedding

a few years ago i saw the french film le samurai which i really loved... alain delon speaks very little in it and it's very stylish and very good..

so last night i cycled over to the riverside in hammersmith to see le cercle rouge by the same director (not that i knew that, it just became apparent as the film moved along) with the pigs...

they'd seen the other film in the double bill as well, i shouted out PIGGY as i entered the cinema to find them and saw their smiling faces near the front... jean-pierre melville directed the film in 1970 (le samurai in 1967) - very good indeed -

we drank a few bombay sapphire g&t's in the bar afterwards and spoke... i don't see them very often and it's always a delight...

afterwards i cycled home through the nottinghill area, filming the bit where the carnival had been only hours before, right now rendering... i'll youtube it and post it later...



me & dinah got dolled up on saturday to go to the wedding of her uncle... her grandma giving a bitingly funny speech, her mum & dad similarly elegant - all of us 4 in fishhead hats (website not yet up & running but it will be)

we drank and chilled out... you know how weddings are... the vegetarian food was a disapointment (you know how weddings are)...

her & wfloopy(shaman) did a gig at the end of the day in a pub in vauxhall... they rocked... as ever... earlier we'd seen a pig being taken for a walk...

ok... too random... i'll be back later with the film...

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riches

The moon orbits the earth. As it passes it pulls at the earth's waters with it's weight, it's gravity, creating tides. The tides were on this planet long before we were, coming in and going out with noone to see it, like traffic lights at a deserted intersection, performing their slow dance divorced from the purpose we gave them, just patterns and movement, animating a lifeless world.

each sentence alternating with a cutup version of the spoken words... this is currently the opening passage for the film... it's been floating around on various bits of paper for ages and i wanted it to live in cyberspace...

a couple of nights ago i had a dream that included me blogging about it with the post title riches... it involved meeting god... or somesuch entity...

i remember floating around in a pre-god stage with many waves or ribbons of water arcing up in the shape of daffodil leaves with someone there concentrating on the water until one arc became solid and i was immediately holding it as it drew me upwards...

the meeting with god was entirely unmemorable, or perhaps i just skipped it in my dream, suddenly i was in an after-meeting-god room with several people i knew, including one of my housemates who i don't get on with... the dream became about avoiding sharing a car with this man even though he was organising it so that we would share... luckily a man halfway between stumpy & brinded (brinded always reminded me of stumpy) came along and swapped seats so that this situation was avoided...

i shaved this afternoon - which i mention only because i bought that beard trimmer on the same day that i bought my ipod shuffle which today ran out of batteries... dying as i knew it would die...

sad

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Behave!

i heard a rumour that the metropolitan police are cracking down in the next two weeks on bicyclists who run red lights... go the wrong way down one way streets... ride on the pavement...

as a proud london cyclists who does all of the above i'm keeping myself in check for the afore mentioned time period... an interesting yoga...

i popped into town to see fearless @ the prince charles cinema this afternoon, which was great, although chinese hollywood so a little black & white but very good none the less - that jet li huh?

then afterwards i cruised over to the location of my film and improvised a vocal part just to see how it felt... before heading up to holborn to meet my boobelah and hold hands a little before she went to work...


it proved to be one of those many, many photo days... the light around 7ish just being beautiful...

i found the grand lodge & have decided to go on a guided tour some day soon... i strolled in but it was only open because they were having a meeting...

a masonic meeting...

oooooh...

i was taking loads of pictures in this pedestrian alleyway thing near dinah's theatre and on leaving the alley i found one of the 1977 silver jubilee walkway things in the ground... that 1977 silver jubilee walkway sure gets around... it extends to where my film is by the thames...


cool... considering blending a few more found images into the film, according to the speech... which is the next thing to be done... all else waits for the words as we were once waiting for the music (notice how i referred to myself as we there - being as i am the entire production team on this film...)

oh and i woke up with a gammy eye... maybe a sty... eating well today as i think it's related to feeling rundown...

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wandering camera improvisation

dinah has started cycling to work and i'm escorting her there and back to get her used to it.. and because i'm a little over-protective of my lovely girl...

i went into town earlier to see Dave Chappelle's Block Party @ the Prince Charles Cinema... great film, simple... just a load of good performers and some community from members of the audience... Jill Scott, Erykah Badu AND Lauryn Hill all in one night... the Roots providing most of the live band backing... wonderful as ever... Mos Def, Common, Kanye West, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli...

some of whom i knew, some i'd vaguely heard of, one or two i'd never heard of...

good performance is so inspirational...

dropped into the museum of london for some research on my film & although they didn't have what i was after i liked what was in there... checked out a few film snippets of the capitol from around 1900... always nice...

got a puncture on the way home which meant that we didn't cycle in to dinah's work tonight... took me awhile to get the energy to fix the puncture and while i was trying to find that energy i found a way to only use one microphone stand for both my microphones so i set them up to record T's piano...

not my favourite piano but a real piano so not to be sniffed at...

once set up i went and fixed the puncture... washing my hands carefully afterwards, not wishing to get bicycle dirt on T's piano...

i heard someone come in through the front door about 2/3rds of the way through my playing... and just as i finished G opened the door and came in, interrupting the very end... i looked over at my camera and it had strangely moved, the vibrations had made it swivel away from my hands which i find strangely compelling... G's laugh ends the video'd improvisation tonight..:



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the ground beneath our feet

so i've been researching for my film, trying to find out when the walkway that is the subject of the film was built...

managed to go back to 1977 and the silver jubilee walkway but it seems to me that the actual walkway itself probably predates this, the jubilee commitee had no real money in '77 so they can't have built it themselves... i think...

waterloo bridge was rebuilt in 1942 - 1945, largely by women (the women's bridge)... the south bank was created in 1951 with the festival of britain, it was a bomb crater left over from the war... so maybe that walkway was built then?

research on the internet is not easy for the 50's... i think i need a real library...

in other news my bike was almost stolen on friday night... locked up and left overnight @ crouch hill station as it was, when i got to it on saturday it was twisted vertical, as though they'd been trying to twist off the lock... and they stole my back mudguard...

my new phone has arrived and it's a deep purple... very nice... it takes video, but worse quality than my camera so no real news there, but it doesn't (yet) go wrong like my old phone and it talks to my computer better so i'm pleased...

me & dinah went out to see cars last night, pleasing entertainment, we'd seen the break-up last week & i saw miami vice on friday, all free and actually all pretty good quality, wasn't expecting much from any of them and they were all good... the break-up surprisingly so...

.......................................

oh look, i didn't publish and now i've got a few more things to say... researching on the internet...

so it turns out the national film theatre was opened in 1957, the building had been the thameside restaurant before that... so presumably the walkway must have been open then...?

strange that you can generally find out about when a building was built... but as to when the ground underneath that building was put down...?

inventory of my dying ipod shuffle

i can't charge it or change the tunes that are on it...

i've read a bit about other prople's similar troubles and it seems that it's died... once the battery goes down it will be dead, i'm going to try and get it changed for a new one at the apple store next week... but it's way beyond it's warranty... mind you it seems to be a common problem... anyway, by way of mourning this little creature that has given me a whole lot of pleasure since 23rd march 2005 i will hereby give you an inventory of the tunes currently residing on my almost dead ipod shuffle:

longcat weekly improvisation's: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, dual improv, 6, 7, cutups & 8...

about half of a Howe Gelb radio show with John Convertino on KXCI radio...

4 tracks downloaded from Chukimai's Myspace page... (i love her music)

John Martyn's Grace & Danger album from 1980...

L. Shankar's Eternal Light album from 2000 (with Zakir Hussain & T.H Vinayakram)...

The brightblack morning light's self titled 2006 album...

Archie Shepp's Attica Blues album from 1972...

so it's not a bad eclectic selection of tunes to see out this beautiful little things's natural life...

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train journeys

i took my last journey on the gospel oak to barking route this morning, last of this week's journey anyway, i'll probably be darkening those train doors again someday...

and i have 2 things to say...

firstly there are some nice things to look at from that train, i was filming videos through the windows this morning, much to my fellow commuters bewilderment...

around blackhorse road station the train goes across the lea valley, the river lea, the reservoirs... lots of nice water in amongst the industrial & residential landscape...

also there is a strange site underneath the north circular, just before the train reaches barking station... as i was looking at cycle maps before i started this week, considering the mad cycle journey i was curious about the north circular, as it seems there are not nearly enough points to cross it on a bicycle...

and then from the train i spied these strange looking tents that you can just see in this satellite image... a little scifi looking, or radioactive or... you know how you're brain makes things up on little sleep..?

ok so the 2nd thing... advice to people avoiding conductors on that train line...

the conductor starts at different ends of the train on different days and doesn't seem to make it all the way through the train, even though it's only two carriages... so the days when i had my bike with me i picked an end, hoping to pick correctly and both times i picked wrong, and couldn't move to the other carriage because of the bike... but the two days without the bike i was able to slip through to the other carriage when i spied the conductor - i still picked the wrong carriage but it didn't matter...

it's a train line without proper stations so you can't buy a ticket until you're on the train anyway so you don't get stung for a £20 fine if you don't have a ticket, but it is pricey if you meet the conductor, £4.20 for a single (9 stops)...

and i never saw a conductor on the return journey @ rush hour...

if i was doing this work for more than a week and i was still without money i would do a proper study of the ends of the train that the conductor starts at... because you never know, they might have a pattern...

oh the way that my mind works in these non-financial summer periods...

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still stupid

the film is moving on...

i did something else stupid in the process but i've found a way around it without redoing what i was doing...

just too eager... should have had a little more sense as i was starting, but i wanted to do it right away... in the evenings when i've been working every day is not my most clever time and that's when this process has been taking place this week, and that's why i've been a little dumb, not that dumb, just dumb enough in a couple of crucial places...

don't know when i'll be able to do the weekly improvisation, saturday i guess, would have been today if i hadn't been working...

nippy & felinity have both helped me out this week which has saved me, particularly as lloydstsb have completely failed to even meet with me to discuss helping me... yesterday it made me really angry that i'd made a point to get my bike into work so i could cycle to a meeting with a bank manager style person, only to find that - even though i had an appointment - she refused to see me, she was in another meeting and tried to tell me over the phone why the answer would be no... all of which i already knew, the reason i was meeting her was to find another way...

anyway... suffice it to say that that woman was seriously lacking in humanity - not to say no to my request - but to not be able to say it to my face... but that was yesterday and a brief shower in an otherwise sunny day washed away my annoyance and i spent the next 15 minutes chasing the rainbow that i felt owed... (didn't find one)

last day of the weeks work tomorrow and i will miss those students, particularly 2 of them... one of whom (cabbage) is the owner of this bear (but they're my shades)

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fools rush in dixie no more

my dad rang me this afternoon while i was just finishing up teaching, he told me that dixie, the oldest of the 2 cats that my mum & dad still had is no more, she's buried in their garden...

i think it may have actually happened yesterday,

my dad actually told me about a month ago that she was on her last legs...

i have a picture of her and her mum (silky) that my mum painted and i've been accustomed to looking at it knowing that silky's gone and now i'm looking at it knowing that they're both gone...

sad... obviously...

and quickly, before i collapse into bed, i started rendering the bits to cutup for my film and i got through all 24 7 second bits of rendering (about an hour & a half's work) before i realised i'd done it wrong and had to do them all again...

marvellous

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report from out there

right now i'd like to be working on the film... so this is a kind of pointless post, just expressing that, i'm @ work in dagenham on my lunch break...

i've been inducted into the langdon corrupted ladies crew... even though i'm not a lady and i don't go to langdon school... but longcat is in amongst the tags on the board as part of that crew... only they don't spell either corrupted or ladies like that...

the different names they go under... teenagers... one of the levels of names my students go under is: cabbage, pants - the same 2 are also called younga kiddi & tubbzy... the 2nd of which is a name balthazara gets called when people think she's over weight...

i got so excited last night when i made the piano float in over the thames path images and then recede like a ghost... i so want to be making that film... although between here and the finished thing there is a lot of menial work..

also the text needs to be written... i bring my notebook into work these days but yesterday on the way in my head was full of the approaching day/week and on the way home i was really tired, sort of fell asleep on the train a couple of times...

this morning i was trying to dodge the train ticket collector amongst other things... strange to be doing these things when you're 33 but needs must...

anyway... rabbiting on as i do... i hope you're all well...

bless the ceasefire in lebanon & long may it last x

working and creating

helping young people to create during the day... my 1st day of the week's work and it went pretty well...

then coming home to create my own stuff by night... edited together the thames path piano piece, so now the time is set which means all the other things can begin to happen... also put the video of me playing the piano into vegas and i've found a way to float it in & out... just want to be able to see it at a few moments in the film...

i'm working with a couple of really nice people, had a great book conversation with M - cortazar - murakami - w g sebald - always nice...

anyway, my bed...

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playing in a park maybe cycling far frivolous film

as the crow flies it's 10.7 miles, a possible cycle route would be 14.4 miles, the train would take about 40 minutes so the cycle journey would be a mad option but i may take it just once or twice... we'll see...

i hit the brick wall of no sir, you may not take out money this afternoon, just as i start my one week's work of the summer - often the way...

a cab is picking me up @ 8:15 tomorrow morning and then i'm in that week, real shock to my system it will be too, but i'm looking forward to it...

gigged in a park yesterday, strange time we had, an audience you could count on your fingers, a few technical confusions at first but we did alright, because of the strangeness of the event i found myself talking with the audience a fair bit and i enjoyed the humour of it... by the end i was shivering, just in a T-shirt and a windy, rainy afternoon...

the event was partly put on by the southwark playhouse who ran a week long summer school for kids which culminated in a performance in the park... primary school age kids, they'd made three papier mache heads of varying sizes...

as we were setting up to play one of their papier mache heads blew across the stage and it gave me an idea for a short film which i later enacted with the help of one of the kids - tori - once i've edited it together i'll post it, it's entirely frivolous and nonsense but it made us laugh...

the day before the trio had rehearsed and the day before that me & Wfloopyshaman had done the piano recording session... busy, busy, busy... in fact i'm listening to the fruits of that session now, i need to pick the take that i use or perhaps glue together two different takes... or three for that matter...

i love the sound of the piano that we got, just with my two mics,

oh - and a peculiar thing - through myspace i've met a netherlands based musician and i commented to her that one of her pieces of music reminded me of a band called outside (although i mistakenly called them inside outside) and then after playing yesterday, a member of the audience told me my music reminded him of outside...

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8th weekly improvisation (grand piano)

i love this piano x

sign a petition?

for a ceasefire in lebanon

sign here

x

this guy

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

i was compelled to leave the house earlier tonight, because of this guy x

cutup improvisations

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betowled and pleased with cutups

so i'm sat here in my towel, which is controversial these days, when i'm not working (and i'm not working very much these days) i can spend hours in my towel, making tea, walking around...

very comfortable, have been for years...

and recently one of my housemates has made it known (after living here for a year) that she doesn't want to see me in a towel in the kitchen... and in fact has now started a vote in the house as to whether there should be bare chests allowed in any communal space...

so i'm an endangered species these days, my betoweled self...

in other news i cutup my video'd improvisations last night, took 20 seconds from each one (there are 8, which includes one experiment that hasn't yet been posted online), cut each 20 seconds into 60 third of a second bits and threw them all together and i love it...

LOVE it...

as soon as i've worked out how to put a title on my film (i use vegas and i'm still quite new at it) it'll be up there and i'll be showing it to you,

and finally i'm going to record the piano piece for my thames path film over @ my landlords in thursday - with the help of Wfloopyshaman - and i'm going to take that opportunity to do my weekly improvisation over there too...

but now i have my one weeks work of the summer approaching and i need to make plans...

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from hampstead heath

in my mind i picture this journal that F & B gave me for playing at their wedding as a digital device, once i've written a page or two it says:

publish to your blog?

and i say yes or no...

of course it's not digital, barely analogue, but this is what i wrote an hour ago sat on a bench on hampstead heath:

taking a break from my slow monitor work - fine tuning the placement of the thames path stuff - although i have a lingering suspicion that i'm fucking it up...

so i cycled out with 50p in very small change to get milk & explore, picked a route to waterlow park that included a might big hill (do we even believe in it anymore?) then on to hampstead heath where i'm now listening to my 7th july improvisation - both fender rhodes one's have been already - interspliced shufflewise with a Howe Gelb archive/live radio show - just my luck, an acoustic guitar just struck up behind me...

finding routes somewhat @ random - both in my ears with improvisations (either 1st or 2nd week now) & also under my wheels...

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piano/voice weekly improvisation no. 7

recorded a few hours ago, 7 minutes 37 seconds long and vocally it's largely to do with israeli agression in lebanon...

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a bevy of youtube videos (& one googlevideo)

nearly all of these video's were lurking over there under the video's heading, clogging up webspace, i've just spent a manic hour or so pushing them all onto youtube - (except for connie - she's on googlevideo)... which is good timing because it seems that youtube video's now show up on the livejournal version of this blog - (don't ask me where it is, i can never remember) - so feast your eyes on these gems - all of them tiny... except for connie, she's a few minutes, she was last summer's piano piece, just as this thames path piece is this summer's...















connie

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joining the slideshow masses