reading on public transport

i'm reading the book thief...

i'm really enjoying it...

so, 3 tiny moments on public transport with the book thief:

last thursday, coming back from work i missed my stop on the picadilly line, had to go one back, too deep in the book,

then this thursday i was concious of that happening last week, i looked up at one point and saw we were at my stop so i jumped off, went up the escalator, through the barrier, only to find that i wasn't at my stop, but the stop before...

again, so deep in the book i couldn't tell that manor house is not turnpike lane...

and i didn't realise until i'd gone through the barrier, paid my money, so i wondered a bit through finsbury park, the nice end, took a long bit of video of a swan and signets on the new river.. (how long would it take me to connect my phone to the computer, move the video over, upload it to youtube?)... then got a 29 back home...



and the night before i'd been rehearsing with TC, preparing for our clapham grand gig on august 1st... we lost track of time and finished with not much time to spare before the tubes stopped... K (drummer) offered to give me a lift to the station, and it was one of those strange situations where, if i'd have walked to the station (keyboard on my back) i would have got the tube home, but because he drove me...

he didn't take me to kennington (the nearest station) he just started driving and we discussed that he was going past earls court, on the picadilly line, so we decided he'd drop me there...

then we got stuck in a traffic jam for 30 minutes...

so in the end he dropped me @ trafalgar square and i got the 29 home...

on the 29 i got out the book, and also my headphones, i've taken to listening to ornette coleman to block out conversation while reading, somehow his style of playing the saxophone - so similar in places to laughing and talking - is just right as a backdrop to fiction...

"this is a 29... to enfield" said an electronic woman at every stop and there was a small group of young men who, for most of the journey, would answer the lady with an "ennn - field" falling in pitch, en masse, again, mixed in with ornette, it seemed just right,

just before turnpike lane a man had got on who was singing at the people on the bus, he started with frank sinatra... i stood up and started strapping on the keyboard and i asked him for another frank tune, whereupon he asked me for a frank tune and i gave him a verse of "you've brought a new kind of love too me", a tune he didn't know... but which i was glad to be reminded of, as i'm going to sing it @ the 90th birthday party i'm playing @ tomorrow,

and as i've got to get up and practise before the singer picks me up @ 1 i'd better be off to bed...

x

welcome 5000th visitor

...(since july 23rd 2005)

which was roughly a year? i think since i started blogging...

was it really 2004 when i started this thing...? yes indeed, june 2004...

anyway, as i did almost a thousands visits ago i will bestow upon my 5000th visitor some kind of geographical reference...

there, now that's an incentive if ever i offered one...

long day of travelling by public transport today, gigging tomorrow and my keyboard has to be where we're rehearsing so that i can cycle from my work in the morning...

so it meant that i strapped it to my back and braved the tube down to kennington this morning, dropping it off and getting straight back on the tube to go to hammersmith, where i stayed an extra hour beyond my regular classes (but why?) which put me right in the rushhour as i caught the tube home again...

were those mad storms last thursday? yes i believe so... so that's two thursday's in a row that i've been tubing it to hammersmith... last week because of aforementioned storm and wind... i remember getting off the tube @ finsbury park to a veritable wall of commuters... fighting my way out of the tube doors, more fighting just to make my way off the platform...

dismembered limbs and blood all around me and i had to wash my sword on the...

hang on...

no, no, no...

so why did i stay an extra hour at hammersmith?

because my boss turned down my idea for splitting up my two classes over there into those who find it easier and those who find it harder, as recompense she offered me an extra hour or perhaps two if there was interest from the students, a space where select students could get more attention from me... and this week 5/6 students took up that offer... more hourage for me and also potentially a good learning situation, early days thereof today but hopeful...

you know, i think the mad storms were two weeks ago... can't be sure...

what all this tubing did for me today was give me an opportunity to read from 2012 the year of the mayan prophesy by daniel pinchbeck that Wfloopy(shaman) & T have leant me... it's turning out to be very good... (set me up for a satisfying fantasy the other day where i was somehow the chosen one writhing in spiritual agony while a blinding light created a crop circle around me)...

oh... and i've had a notion about my weekly improvisations... i don't know if there's interest enough for this, but i thought i could offer for sale a cd of whichever improvisations people wish... each one typically 15 minutes long, so you could fit 5 on a cd...

but how to make them nice not just the usual burnt cd's i can do myself... hmmm... cdbaby?

anyway, i'm rambling...

welcome oh 5000th visitor, your presence is a present...

x