march improv walking

this from thursday morning...

today though was a killer day, the day that the moon is closest to us... i took a walk... once this video was rendering... did the 2 part... got told i looked like a movie star in jai... then up to the big green... standard circuit...

found myself saying to an almost complete stranger: "look after that leg" as she left the shop...

lovely S in there asked me about my living stuff - landlord - and of course it brought it all to mind, put the afternoon in perspective, this area that i love, coming home to this flat that i love, that balthazara loves...

and it does make me sad... seeking advice on monday...

x

fugees

just a brief one... i was working with refugees today, and i recorded a sudanese man, we made a very bare bones track called supermarket... bare bones on my end at least... how nice it is to record original music that sounds so wonderful from such an original source...

that's all... listening to last sunday's jarvis which is characteristically marvellous x

slightly further afield

funny old thing, living... i get that big shock last week and it rules my life for a week... then this week, even though the news is still the same, i'm much more relaxed and i'm back to thinking about the novel again, (not that that stopped last week),

as E tells me, i do need to to give my housing situation a lot of thought, but i will think about it in my own time... & today has been lovely...

oh & thanks felinity, it has been grim and will be grim again... but for now i'm ok...

i got up slowly, in the way that i do only on day offs in the week...

gradually working out to how to do what E wants me to do with her computer... then around 1:30 i look @ the time and i'm out of the house, doing the 2 part... just making it into jai before 2 for part 2 - the dall... then up to the big green bookshop and i order this years proust (novel writing cannot interrupt the slow moving proust)... and all three of them are in... even lovely S whose day off it is... and who has moved out of london... shockingly...

i agree to lend them my amp for their comedy night on friday, and then me & S walk up the road to alexandra palace station where he embarks further north, and i decide to cross the railway tracks and cycle through ally pally's park on the way home... not a journey i've ever really done, not like this anyway...

i met a man, watching the birds on the reservoir there - much interesting talk which may effect the novel (doesn't everything) about the ring main and the gulls... then cycling down on the edge of the park back to turnpike lane (the road) and home...

the sun shining underneath some forbidding clouds...

lovely...

x

peace

well... a kind of peace... at least peace as compared to last week...

last week was a bit mad, and it was all because my landlord is putting the rent up by 30% - £350/month more...

mixed me right up it did...

anyway - i'm staying here at least until may, one month into the new rent - assuming that happens and is legal... (i'm seeking citizen's advise)...

the novel is still going, part of it may have to be told in the form of a childrens television program that the kids in the novel are watching... i've been writing the theme tune all weekend...

and i've been reading old blog posts from years back - 2004... found a lovely one from just after me & P began (P who is reading the 1st few bits of the novel now) partly about having a smooth ride on my shopping trolly in waitrose...

and the sun is shining x

E's been here & she's coming back later... x

rising sketch - Dsi Tetra tune

 Rising Sketch Tetr4 by longcat

being a tune i threw together today... pleasant enough... i was listening to david arnold last night on jarvis cocker's show, talking about john barry... not that this thing is anywhere near that kind of stuff but it has a rousing element to it that i like x

marking jarvis

listening to yesterday's sunday service... with a very intelligent piece about the monkees...

foolish - as i'm also marking...

which of course means i'm also playing minesweeper...

@ which i have been going through a period of not being that good... my average of 24% which i sometimes get up to 25% had slipped down to 23% this morning... something i have now rectified...

i think i have been genuinely less clever over the last few weeks... an unfortunate mixture of causes... combining the end of my winter cold (or - just a continuation of my winter cold), the marking itself, which doesn't always make me more stupid, but mixed in with my peculiar behaviour with my heart these last 2 weeks (me & E broke up - floating about each other since then & could easily get back together... but haven't yet)...

however today i not only completed my tax return in record time...

i do feel a return to an older longcat - slightly more able... not that me & E are there yet - in either direction... not that i have so far managed to complete my marking - & lord knows that's something i'm looking forward to...

possibly me & E are wrapped up with the marking... once i've got through that i can really think straight about her... maybe...

this morning she went to work & i felt like the tax return would be easy - the momentum would carry me through the marking - i'd have it done by the time episodes comes on BBC2 tonight... not the likeliest outcome right now - but not absolutely out of the question...

around 1pm i was reading the new scientist whilst walking back from the cafe... i got in, sat on the sofa still in my coat... found reading a little difficult and realised i needed to sleep... so i got into bed... slept until about 3pm... woke with the sunlight and the blue sky in the thin gap of the curtains... balthazara there -

& it felt almost like i was owed this lovely waking moment from yesterday... when i was really hung over & sleep was sought after... E rang me about midday & it was still too early - it woke me up but i wanted more sleep - wanted to wake up more normally -

so - very nice to have that today - might mess with my sleep tonight, & i've got earlyless & lateness tomorrow...

anyway - more marking - less rambling x

stanfield

3rd season of fringe... and i'm enjoying it so far (just seen the 1st 3)...

of course i'm only watching it because i'm marking at the moment... procrastination is the thief of time to quote spski... he whose tax return i'm helping him with on friday... josiah's tax return is also on my list although she's yet to get back to me... so maybe she'll be dealing with it without me...

... maybe not...

then there's my tax return...

but that is not what i am posting about this evening...

nor am i posting about the slightly difficult time i'm having with my heart...

no... i am posting about the wire - and fringe...

in fact i 1st came to fringe because lance reddick - the hard police boss in the wire (his title changes throughout the seasons, but he's always hard) is playing the hard fringe division boss in fringe... and the one in the wire who let his gun go off accidentally and became a teacher... he showed up as a one off character in fringe, maybe i read about it in the guardian?

so we already know about the link... but now bubbles (junky/police informer in the wire) is a taxi driver in the alternative universe of fringe... who is bound to come back because he's bubbles... & olivia has lost her mind, thinking she's the alternate olivia in the alternate universe... & bubbles is almost guaranteed to turn up helping her remember her real life...

but also... in episode 3 there is a great character (alternate universe) who is on super mind expanding drugs & he is able to kill people by carefully putting ball point pens places, causing a sequence of events that lead to someone dying...

anyway - his name is milo stanfield...

which is almost the same name as the name marlo stanfield, the name of the mob boss in the 2nd season of the wire...

now - the wire is so much better than fringe... & fringe is helped by it's links to the wire, for me... it's still good, fringe, mostly, it does make me miss the wire all over again though...

which reminds me... did i ever get to the end of the sopranos... this time around...? yes - i think i did... also very good... in fact i was i was trying to find a link from fringe to the sopranos, the lead woman - olivia - in fringe - i was thinking that she was meadows insane college roommate in the sopranos - although that memory is getting weaker - and is it really true that that character killed herself? am i thinking of a different program? like heroes perhaps? maybe it's the cheerleaders insane college roommate...

oh - but marking - yes... marking... x

started writing a novel

if i know you, (if you're in my life), and you're interested in hearing the story, please let me know and i'll tell it to you,

i'm not yet up for emailing it to anyone, it's just being told verbally right now...

probably over a tea,

x

PS - i've started another blog, keeping track of who i've told, changes and stuff...

x

3 tweets

all on november 25th... 2 of mine...

you see i have just noticed that i was mentioned by polly cupcake on this day & she said:

"i couldn't agree more" (tweet)

but was she agreeing with my tweet about gorecki - or my tweet about misfits?

how can i know?

x

aaaah the times of the tweets gave it away, she was talking about gorecki x

february 2011 in phones

august 2009... + 18 months...

equals january/february 2011 does it not?

and if that is true then in february my 18 month contract with this phone will be over and i can get hold of something else...

my htc hero has been pissing my off of late - basically since the much talked about android 2.1 update, it's not been right... it's been good at all the other smartphone things it does but on occasion it becomes unable (and seemingly unwilling) to behave like a telephone... which is it's basic function afterall...

orange uk currently don't have a huge amount of choice in the android phone department, but these next few months will be interesting...

since i got my mac i have started to consider an iphone... although id prefer (at this point) to keep it in the android family if i can...

A desire HD would be nice... i wonder if orange will get hold of them and if i'd have to pay for it? hmmm

idly dreaming x

ode to portal... & the arguments for & against going backwards

spent the day alternating between playing the piano & lusting after portal 2 in a few different ways....

for example... for the last few hours i've been completely caught in this flash version of portal... E got in a little while ago & i was desperately stuck @ level 37 (of 40)...

& then before that i was devouring all the youtube portal 2 stuff...

from this to this... to this... it just looks amazing...

but i will need a more powerful computer... it's possible it will run on steam for the mac... and therefore on my lovely G5... which would be odd because i originally wanted to keep that computer just for the music... something i'm failing to do already...

& the G5... hmmmmmmm...

which is now running OS 10.5 so well... i'm considering going back to 10.4...

you see i got hold of something back then, something i wanted, and on trying to install it my mac told me i needed 10.5...

so i managed eventually to go up to 10.5... by which time i'd deleted (by accident) the desirable thing... a few weeks later and lovely D gave the desirable thing to me again (i'd given it to him on 1st getting hold of it) and i duly sat down and installed it... but after everything... it just refused to work... and a little bit of research (which i wish i'd done back then) told me that it wasn't only that i need 10.5... it was that i needed an intel mac... which i don't have...

so i looked at another - older version of the desirable thing... & it turns out that version will only run on 10.4...

also today i tried to do something which it seemed to me the only way i could actually do it would be to reinstall 10.5 - and therefore i may as well go back to 10.4...

and the piano playing?

alternating between a new composition & "we've only just begun" which i learnt for a student on monday and which i'm really enjoying singing...

x

improvisations

this one i did yesterday... mixing a drone i made in the TX modular synth with my rhodes...



last week it was the frohmage plugin from ohmforce that pleased me so much... with the rhodes...



and then a month ago, a week after the 1st i did (this time around)... rhodes & voice...



and while i'm in a youtube place... this rhythm tree i made as a reference for my students:



x

girlfriend

i have met and am now going out with a young lady whose name bares a striking resemblance to certain other young women in my romantic past...

i am also struggling with tryin to put mac OS 10.5 on my new mac PPC... something i've been struggling with for what seems like eternity but is probably more like a week...

me & her have been together for just under 3 weeks now... i have met her mother...

she is beautiful, with long dark hair,

she came round to buy my trombone, and didn't leave for about 5 days...

october improvisation

so today... after a weekend of setting up my new G5 computer (a mac)...

& indeed spending time with someone new... who shall remain nameless for now... but who is playing her trombone right now (used to be mine - then it was monty's - now it's hers)...

i got the m-audio sound card thing talking to logic in the G5... put the karma mics up under the knight piano...

and hey presto - a 9 minute improvisation -

enjoy x

booker business

so i woke up today & lazily reached over to find the book...

& read the last 20 or so pages of "In a strange room" by Damon Galgut...

being the 6th of the 6 shortlisted books for the booker prize...

and the decision isn't being made on it until a week tomorrow - so how ahead of the game am i ladies & gentlemen?

slightly lost though now... without the need to go to the big green bookshop and swap over this book for the next one...

although i do need to pick which one i want to keep (not counting C by TomMcCarthy which i bought already)... at the moment i think it's going to be this book i finished today - more thought is required though...

and who should win?

well 1st let me give you my 6 twitter reviews:

In a strange room - Damon Galgut: Hugely powerful, sparely written at 1st but gathering like a storm, maybe a little unbalanced, beautful x (today 4th october)

The Long Song - Andrea Levy: took me awhile to get into the style but it embedded itself in my mind, great characters... evocative writing x (thursday 30th september)

Room - by Emma Donoghue... kept me close to tears most of the way through... well told, thoughtful, lovely, will stay in my head... x (saturday 25th september)

The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson. Very funny, a little bit painful, slightly flaccid in the middle, has an ending i'm not sure about x (wednesday 22nd september)

Parrot and Olivier in America - by Peter Carey... too long, olivier's character irritating, but ended well & had good history.. too clever x (friday 17th september)

finished C by Tom McCarthy... i was left wanting more... longlisted for the booker... great writer... lovely progressions of images... x (sunday 29th august)

and the 3 that are vying for 1st place in my mind are C (Tom McCarthy), In a strange room (Damon Galgut) & Room (Emma Donoghue)...

hmmmm - i'll wait a little for the dust to settle over my reading of this last one then i'll let you know...

all before the judges make their decision (i'm aware that they all read this blog and they will find it hard to make a decision without my decision)

x

pulsate

being what i found today... idly thinking about that lovely tonematrix... and stumbling from that onto a newer thing that he made... (andre michelle)...

this is the pattern i'm listening to right now... and i'm really enjoying it...

each circle expands until it hits another circle (also expanding) - they ring out a sound then both start shrinking until they're nothing then they expand again...

the bottom 2 circles... and the top 2 circles would be doing things independently if the middle circle wasn't there... they'd be locked into two different tones... with different cycles...

but the middle circle messes with them...

and it's all so non-linear dynamics... and a little bit solar systemeee as well...

there will be long periods where a small number of different tones are produced, with subtly shifting timings... like the top 2 will be just locked together making the same tone... the bottom 3 will be locked into a pattern of there own... until something shifts just far enough and everything changes again...

and this is just this pattern that i've got here...

sadly you can't save anything... or remove individual circles... you can just put in circles one by one or remove them all... but it's still a lovely, lovely thing... and it brings about a lovely calm in me...

x

Deflea again

actually this was yesterday... the little blighters are still around so i thought maybe i did the last deflea wrong?

anyway... she forgave me almost immediately... i think because although i did lock the cat flap she didn't try and go through it... which is a pretty traumatic thing... racing away from the abusive human only to bang your head against the cat flap...

saw gong last night along with space ritual @ the forum... a friend of A's had a free ticket... steve hillage was in the band and that was nice to see... some of those gong tunes are fantastic and i'm about to fire up spotify and see if they're on there...

indeed they are... angels egg - (radio gnome invisible part 2) the 1st album i ever heard... courtesy of my brother... lovely...

the booker has begun...

i'm 160 odd pages into parrot and olivier in america by peter carey... which is good but a bit hammy so far... it turns out C by tom mccarthy did make the short list so i'm one book ahead of the game already...

this music does make me want to smoke... and smoking does not particularly agree with reading all the booker price shortlisted books before october 12th...

so there's a conflict...

anyway - happy sunday x

deflea dr john chico buarque

she's sulking somewhere... but it's done...

dr john has come back into my life, much more than before... i'd seen him on jules holland and i think we supported him once at a student ball @ warwick university... not that i saw him then or him us - (i imagine)

anyway, i was @ core on monday for a meeting and a few of us musicians killed some time jamming, a straightforward tune led by me and then a much less straightforward melange which somebody said sounded like gris-gris... dr john's 1st album...

since then i've immersed myself in 3 different albums by dr john: gris-gris, dr john's gumbo & in the right place...

'68, '72, '73,

and then chico buarque's construcao came to mind today after listening to some of the crazy arrangements on gris-gris...

i'm also continuing to write the tune i started last week on the rhodes... some lyrics are floating in...

and the sopranos is getting dark... ralphy in season 3...

oh and i've started my booker book club reading, although C by Tom McCarthy is only on the longlist, the shortlist hasn't been announced... i read an excerpt from C in the "sex" granta... what i read was great and i'm very pleased to have found another writer i like, and for this book to be at least in the longlist for the booker...

if it makes it onto the shortlist i will have begun early for the booker book club challenge of reading all 6 booker shortlisted novels in the 5 weeks between shortlist announcement & winner announcement... (i did it last year)

x

rhodes muse new tune

that beautiful electro acoustic instrument feeds me... i didn't know i was looking for love until i found it... i had forgotten how much it gives me & i am oh so glad to have it back in my life...

yes it would profit from the preamp being looked @ by the nice milton keynes man...

yes... that's true... but in the state it's in right now, which is pretty much the way it's been when it's been working for me in the past...

it is both muse and instrument... it calls forth music from me...

and since it's been working again - roughly the last 24 hours... i've written a new tune... well... i've got 2 sections chordwise and i've written a provisional melody for the chorus which is really nuts chordwise...

it may suit the voice of someone i met last week... it may suit my own voice... lyricly it may well talk about my feelings in relation to oncewassqueeze... it could turn into a spanner tune... it could be a longcat tune... it could be a tune from this identity i'm thinking about which uses my real name...

from me... if you will...

x

rhodes stuff

so i got the amp bit home... asked around and got hold of a soldering iron... soldered in the speaker lead that had gone astray... put the amp bit back in... proceeded to screw back in the 10 huge screws that i remember it taking me an age to unscrew the 1st time i ever did it...

didn't quite finish before the job finished off the screwdriver i was using...

excitedly moved the keyboard part near the amp/speaker part... plugged it all in...

and it didn't sound right... still doesn't... although it did for one moment...

disappointing yes... but i remember it being very reticent when i 1st got it and it finding it's proper voice after 6 months or so... i came to believe that it was being left turned off for long periods of time that it didn't like...

anyway translate that to today and it's clear to me the preamp (on the keyboard part of the suitcase) is having trouble... (the lights aren't coming on properly... so maybe it's not getting it's power quite right...or it's not happy in some way inside...

it's a job for daylight... and a possible phonecall to the nice man i saw today... although a thought has just entered my mind that maybe i didn't push the bits in correctly before screwing it all together again... and my heart breaks at the thought of undoing all those screws again...

so... that's where i'm at x

but just before i close... i'm just had another look at it and pushed the sustain pedal a few times, turning the tremolo on and off...

and it has started behaving like it's old self again...

tomorrow now before i give myself a proper rhodes experience... one can't play one's rhodes at the volume one deserves in the middle of the night... not in this flat anyway...

must also get hold of a new screwdriver and finish screwing down those pesky screws... exaclt half of them are as far down as i intend to get them, the other half and a cm or so off...

tomorrow x

tethered

my 3rd trip to milton keynes of 3... picking up the bit of my rhodes... then home... then some work putting it back together again... then possibly a smoke... then rhodes bliss once more...

blogging from my PC.... tethered to the internet through my phone... something i was looking forward to being able to do with android 2.1 - although it turns out i could have done it anyway...

around about the middle of the 2nd series of the sopranos... it makes me happy... a smile coming to my lips fairly often... such well written and beautifully crafted TV...

ok, that's all i have to say... i'm really just showing off because i can use the internet on this train...

and then i can't... mobile phone networks being oh so fragile while on trains...

x

today... the day before my brothers birthday

worked...

the 1st full day of the new term... although not such a full tuesday as i used to have... the spanners not rehearsing this time, and in the future they won't be rehearsing on a tuesday any more which, no matter which day it eventually falls upon, will make my life easier...

after work i walked over to see C (homerton to broadway market) - guitarist and recording engineer... as well as being many other things... we recorded over @ his place a few weeks ago, in the week where i had no work at all - (except a meeting... nothing's prefect)...

then after leaving his i got onto the canal and walked to angel... even trying to go beyond the bit that's closed off... i got through several fence type obstructions before a security guard stopped me, very reasonably from going the final 20 meters... the concrete had just gone down today apparently and even if he hadn't been there i probably would have turned back anyway...

then into the vue cinema for the loo, finally finding my way into wagamama's for a small meal...

i wrote this down while i was in there:

quite richard fordesque acceptance falling over me


although of course it's also eminently longcatesque & it's one of the things i like about richard ford - & about frank bascombe - that in some ways they are like me -


the rhodes situation casting a lovely bubbling presence behind my mind all day,


slightly timeless quality now - in that i don' know what time it is - only that it was 9 when i got on the canal -


walking also a welcome influence on my mind - the hint of autumn that the low sun coming through the trees @ london fields... not quite - it's more that lovely late summer magic that blesses us a few more times...


trave 39 tomorrow-


frank bascombe being richard ford's main character in the sportswriter, independence day & the lay of the land... the 3rd of which i finished reading today while waiting for students to show for my keyboard class - a risky strategy because it could have been cut off at any time... but it wasn't...

the rhodes situation being that part of my lovely suitcase rhodes piano is currently in milton keynes, under the watchful eye of a very nice silver haired old git who is mending it for me...

i don't know... you wait for a reason to go to milton keynes for decades... and then 3 turn up all at once...

x

magical menagerie & the sopranos

these days i watch way too much average TV... average to below average...

true blood is still good... and probably will remain so... i'm watching the 3rd season gradually as it is on in america... as i am watching warehouse 13's 2nd season... warehouse 13 being not as good but still mostly good... with the odd duff episode thrown in sadly...

also warehouse 13 got me into eureka... which i wish hadn't happened... a character from eureka turned up in warehouse 13 so i got hold of the 1st season of eureka and it's terrible... well... it's mostly half good... with the odd really terrible episode and once in a while there is a good episode... i'm about 3 episodes from the end of this season and... i know... why am i watching it?

some completeness thing i have i think...

anyway, i've decided to go back to the source and i'm currently getting hold of the entire 6 seasons of the sopranos... all of which (except for the last 9 episodes) i watched back when it was on british TV... somehow i missed the last 9 and i was thinking of getting hold of just them but it's been so long that i think i'm ready for the whole thing again...

it'll take awhile to get here... it's on it's way...

and then, just a few pictures of what me & grace got up to on sunday... except that blogger is odd these days with me & pictures... and i don't have the brain right now to go the long way around... so this is the only picture you have... suitably mysterious... the fantastic up down lever on one of the fish... so much fun...

more information another day x

michael franks half of life

a circuitous route brought me to this singer this morning...

i got a phone call confirming that i wouldn't be seeing the person i was hoping i could see this week... and indeed i haven't seen her for a couple of weeks... and i won't see her now for another 2 weeks after this week..

a fact that i was told back when she found me on facebook... (do you want to meet? yes, but it's either this weekend or not for 5 - 6 weeks)... but which i didn't really take in back then...

so i said to myself... as i got out of bed (the phone call had woken me up),,, it's better to know than to not know... which brought the song positive into my mind... the michael franti tune that i had loved all those years ago (around the time she was in my life last time)...

so i fired up spotify and i tried to find the song... and spotify asked me if i meant michael franks... which pleased me immensely... part of the album "the art of tea" was on a cassette tape that my friend luke hedge made for me when were in the sixth form together... half my life ago...

naturally i wanted to hear that album now as well as the michael franti tune...

not that spotify could satisfy me on either score... spotify with it;s random holes...

however i used my other means and i got to hear everything i wanted in the end... except that the 1st time i downloaded the album, whoever i got it from had the wrong version of st elmo's fire... very odd, listening to the 1975 album of lovely wistful jazz (featuring the great joe sample on keys) and then being thrown into the 80's sound of john parr... most distressing... even though that tune was something i was fond of even further back than my liking for michael franks...

oh and... talking about half my life ago... on monday i passed through being exactly half as old as my dad... without realising it...

something i'd been thinking about for ages and which had sometimes been casting a dark shape over my emotions (uneasy comparisons between him then, me now, me being born, his 2nd son, me having no kids and no prospects right now)... and while it was going on i was saying goodbye to grace after 24 hours of her... having my ear syringed & thus ending the ear saga... generally feeling as though i was crossing a line in a few ways, but forgetful of the actual line i was crossing... only tonight, reading richard ford on the tube did i remember...

must ring dad tomorrow...

x

longcat in mono

about to go out and start the doctors process... register at the doctors on the corner, make an appointment for as soon as possible...

it's been a week and it hasn't cleared up so doctor bound am i... just as most of the women in my life are telling me to go there (sister, ex-girlfriend, long-lost-once-was-squeeze)...

so hopefully this will mean an end to this situation in the nearish future... but while it's here i want to mention a few facets of it...

1stly it's odd that i listen to most of my music these days through a mono speaker anyway... the TV is stereo and headphones (when i listen to music from my phone) are too but mostly i listen to music from my computer through spotify... (like i'm doing now, with the mono speaker on my left hand side, with the ear that works... lovely album by Bill Frisell, Paul Motion & Ron Carter)...

2ndly - it may be an illusion but i can hear my singing voice clearer now, so singing in tune is easier...

this is something to do with the background noise being more foreground i think... although i can't tell you why right now...

3rdly it has been very odd and a little like taking hallucinogenic drugs... in that i feel somewhat at odds with the world... at some distance from it... like the world is behind a sheet of glass...

and then there's the pain, when i yawn, swallow, that kind of thing, not all the time when i do these things but quite a lot of the time, and i've been taking pain killers but i don't know if they've been working...

and when i'm in pain, i become a much simpler human being... i can't deal with as much as i normally can and my world shrinks down to the space in my head...

ok 4thly... the space in my head... i have this odd movement of my jaw which i've been conscious of for a year or so now, i tend to do it when i'm lying down ready to sleep... i move my jaw so that i get a sensation of pushing against something... although i don't know what it is i'm pushing against...

only now, with this ear thing, i do the pushing thing and somehow one of my teeth - (whose filling fell out ages ago and i haven't been to the dentist about) connects with the pushy jaw thing which in turn connects with the ear pain, and it all hurts...

it's amazing... and irritating... i wish i could stop doing it... when both pains are there sometimes my brain interprets them both as a major third (2 musical pitches).. high up (because the pain is in my head)... i blogged about this sort of thing once before... hmmm... no, can't find it... anyway... must go to the doctors x

portishead

listening to the complete works of portishead, as presented by spotify... not quite the complete works of course... but what's easily to hand...

i love this band... haven't paid much attention to them for some time, and it's nice to re-associate with them in my mind...

i'm also taking the initial questionnaire for the UK COSMOS study - the mobile phone usage and it's effect on health study that i'm signing up for for the next 40 years or so...

i'm taking a break, because i don't know how tall i am, nor how much i weigh... i've just put a pencil on my head and drawn a line onto the wall... like mum & dad used to do when we were growing up... at some point i'll find a tape measure... as to my weight i've have to find some scales... not in this flat...

i'm also heating up some daal in the oven, it's from sainsburies, 1st go at it, i stopped in to the sainsburies in camdem on thursday after a walk along the canal from paddington (as is my want) - hoping to find an indian meal for one, which my local sainsburies has stopped doing... (they have the meal for two) but sadly even the camdem one doesn't do it, maybe sainsburies as a whole have given up on me and my single liking for indian food...

i did get a few other indian ready meals which i duly ate on thursday night, except for the daal... which is in there now...

the walk was lovely, and i'm very glad that i'm getting used to putting it into my weekly routine - such as it is... quality of life is important to me... x

oh well

peter green... popped back into my life again yesterday as i was showing him playing in the 60's to a student...

via the medium of youtube...

oh well... being a killer, killer riff based tune that peter green's fleetwood mac used to play...

and the words "oh well" describe something in my head this evening... not a great deal, but something...

that's all...

x

canals

so this is for 3 different occasions recently...

the 1st a couple of mondays ago, then the wednesday after that, then this thursday just gone...

1st & 3rd on foot, 2nd on the bike...

it started that monday, regretting not cycling in to KCC (by trellick tower), i got onto the grand union canal right there and wondered along it, at a very different pace to the cycling i generally do on it - although having said that, my quite impressive walking pace cycling technique does get employed with pockets of pedestrians on that canal from time to time -

little venice came along & i transferred onto the regents canal with a certain amount of street necessary... although less street than when i'm on my bike as feet can go back down to the canal earlier than wheels it turns out...

it was around 2 in the afternoon and on the two mondays previous to this i'd been to see the finches, 1stly with felinity on her birthday, then on my own (but seeing felinity's friend & goddaughter there)...

back to this monday i'm talking about i found my stone grand piano, under those rail bridges... place of homage for me...

i met a lovely young woman reading a huge textbook where the canal goes around the top of regents park... then floated off the canal and lay down in the park for a little while... reading proust...

i wanted to take the canal all the way to kings cross tube but i was kicked off it by some work happening (not happening in my sight but cutting off my progress),,, so i reluctantly made it back to street level and found the 29 bus home...

the following wednesday i had a meeting @ cm for an hour in the middle of the day, and afterwards i rolled a little jazz cigarette & stowed it away in my bag - i went in search of dilmah tea in the huge sainsburies in stepney... successful in my task i then headed north and when i hit the regents canal i got down onto it & headed west...

finding my progress cut short by another bit of work i stopped and smoked my JC... watching a man deal with his barge on his own...

when he started trying go through the lock that was just on the other side of the barrier blocking me & my bike i lent him a hand, squeezing through the barrier and assisting him with shutting the lock doors...

it turns out he possesses a sound system so we traded numbers, the idea that one day i might need a huge soundsystem seemed possible just then...

then finally this last thursday... again i hadn't cycled in to work over there (this time HWLC) and again after work i rolled myself a couple of JC's & i was drawn to the canals again... i got the train over to paddington and came out round the back by the canal... walked through the throngs of commuters up to little venice and onto the regents...

did that little bit of street, coming down just east of the maida vale tunnel... stepped off the path to right by the tunnel mouth and smoked the 1st of my two JC's...

saw a boat enter the tunnel and headed east... meeting a family of ducks, a couple of beautiful women & a travel writer on my way around regents park, through camdem and then eventually off the canal at the same point i'd been kicked off a couple of mondays earlier...

this time i tried to walk from there to where i could rejoin the canal but i got distracted on the way by st pancras graveyard... by st pancras old church (where R used to do those gigs, maybe still does)...

the graveyard suited me fine and i smoked the 2nd JC while looking @ hardy's tree... really enjoying the low angle that the sunlight was coming in @...

also really enjoyed soanes tomb for his wife (and eventually himself) which seemed to me to be like a really old rolls royce car...

eventually leaving there & walking down to st pancras station, through the eurostar bit (under that fantastic roof) and down finally to the tube @ kingscross and home...

many more canal days ahead i hope...

x

YMCK & Blewbury

1st blewbury, the whole of our immediate knight clan met up over there yesterday, because felinity & her G were planning to go down & pick up some plants...

i met felinity & G down @ the BFI IMAX @ some ungodly hour of the morning for Avatar... the 2nd time i'd seen it there and with slightly better seats, although still not perfect...

3D cinema really does require some extra brain work, small parts of my mind constructing the 3D world from the 2 visual sources, and we all found this a bit hard after 3 hours, but it's a great film, i loved it until the last hour and felinity could have lost the middle hour or so... if only G had really disliked the 1st hour we could have all had separate hour breaks...

then off we drove across to blewbury, where D&M&C had also landed, i got to sing a little bit of charlotte's song to charlotte just before they left, got an appropriate leaning in my direction from her as a response...

mum & dad both well, D&M on good form & felinity & G their lovely selves... charlotte the star...

got home last night and i've woken today with nothing to do...

not the worst sensation in the world... i might ring up le fam pevo & see what they're up to, i have been invited to a barbecue by someone i met last weekend, but i'm not sure i'm ready for so many strangers @ once today...

G came round on wednesday night to finish watching the leopard (visconti) & whilst he was here he showed me a few ableton tips, so i'm curious about that little world, music making in a different way... also i've got charlotte's song to finish writing & begin recording, a tune of HK's that i said i'd find a bassline for which i've had the idea for, but not followed through with the recording...

so there's a few things i might do... or again i might do nothing at all, smoke a little & play the rhodes all day x

listening to YMCK - family genesis, it's beautiful... i find their songs pop into my head at odd times... lovely music...

finches portal dance

currently queuing for the finches... the 2nd monday in a row... after me & felinity came here for her 30th x

these days i'm playing portal... a game that's become free on steam (i heard about it on charlie brookers twitter)... it's great, it stretches my little computer...

i took a really slow train back from brighton last night, after a truly lovely weekend with grace & josiah, also catching a bit of mr dance, and a great actual dance/movement piece called expresso that josiah's downstairs neighbour was in... fantastic...

so i was on the train that took 2 & a half hours to make the hour or so long trip... i was a bit spangled (mark turned up just before i left & we piped a little before getting into a large one about israel/palestine) and i spent some of the time gazing at the fieldlines thing, some time reading, although i only had the new scientist with me & i was having trouble taking it in...

so i spent quite a bit of time in portal... it works better when @ home with my larger monitor, but it works ok with this little screen just so long as the character doesn't go into any really large rooms... i'm not sure if she can go into large rooms alright @ home, but for sure my little computer starts slowing right down when the distances get bigger with the little screen...

so for example i would be puzzling over this massive room right now but i know it would just frustrate me... hence blogging...

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

ok, finches done, sat out in the dazzling sunshine after having eaten a pasta dish served up by the waterside cafe... thought i recognised a woman in with the funches as felinity's friend... with her daughter, who would be felinity's goddaughter if it was them... but i didn't make contact...

also a few finches landed on me a few times... put me in mind of the rilke poem about the birdfeeder...

very pleasing all round... and now i think about it.. i got a text yesterday from felinity showing me something she made from a book i made her get last monday while out for her birthday and she might be offering it to me...?

or she might be making another one for me... pictures when it arrives...

happy day x