portishead vinyl poetry

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

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

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

x

very briefly

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

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

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

x

folly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

anyway, more work calls,

x

multitasking even though i'm a man

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

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

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

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

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

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

normalising now,

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

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

x

not now kato

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

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

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

x

smooth ride

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

it's been beautiful though,

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

on sunday i went to waitrose.

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

my shopping trolley was a real smooth ride.

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

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

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

(she's so nice)

x

action shot from the day before me & P began 

snapshot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

the gift of sight

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

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

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

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

lovely

x

slow day ahead of me, a luxury i like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hmmmmm, just thinking about it,

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

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

x

no drink then drink

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

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

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

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

very nice,

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

x

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

wild life beautiful skies rubbish 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

maybe 4 hours now

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

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

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

1st draft done

handing it over to the director tomorrow,

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

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

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

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

hmmmm... much to ponder,

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

x

composition

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

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

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

timing, waves

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

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

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

x

composition process

very up & down day,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

from inside 

messy picture of.. 

top noshed for the last time

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

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

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

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

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

x

late afternoon light from three weeks ago x 

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

my tongue is a cat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

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

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

all bluetoothed up i am and proud of it,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

my filling with the book, bluetoothed in just now 

brighton old pier with skylarks 

bukowski gone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

x

day after party six feet under bliss

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

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

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

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

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

off out now to see the pigs... x

skryabin saps my strength

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

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

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

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

x