FiftyFive ~ # 55

Chalk and cheese, dress up and dress down, this picture captures A & D to a "T" as they celebrate glamorous Pamela's wedding. Quite an event which I will write about when I have more time - not many people have a pipe band playing them off at midnight - so stirring even I remembered I was Scottish (through and through) - och!

And this auld pair, 158 years in total.

But girls just wanna be glam cousins:

it was a funny thing but this weekend was the first time my entire family have been together, Mum and Dad, brothers and sisters, inlaws and outlaws and all of our/their assorted kids and some kids with kids of their own (making my sister a granny, me a great uncle and my mother and father great Papa and Nana - blimey) I counted 23 (wrongly - I later realised it was 31) of us all descended from the auld yins above. Goodness there's a lot o' us but what fun was had:

Champagne

more champagne we cried

all sense of reason long since gone

and I'll never forget

the night I lost my memory...

Families eh - we'd walk the 500 hundred miles home jist tae haver:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

New shelves for books stored on the floor are now built - phew, only now do I realise how many needed shelving - there are 5 shelves and about 80-90 books per shelf in total - blimey, there didn't look that many until I emptied all the nooks and crannies, corners andother surfaces. But shelving is good, I like building things, its cathartic and healthy and satisfying - and lets face it not too hard. I just screwed in the brackets, cut 3 inches of the wood and then stuck 'em up. One day I may even alphabetise the books (not - I revel in the "delightful chaos") though it was good to find my copy of Beautiful Angiola again.

In the foreground of the picture (above) is my "Blue Fish" recently purchased from a local artist (Kate Lulham) goodness knows where I am going to put it - but will find a space. Its great though, you might need to click on the picture to see it better. But I am posting it now - will take a better picture later - for I must fly - Icarus-like to Edinburgh for birthdays and weddings and meetings with old friends, drouthy neighbours, sisters, brothers inlaws and outlaws - wish me sunshine. Yesterday I was reminded of this fantastic track - another Icarus song indeed, shine your mobile phone in the dark and sing along with the crowd.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Wet hair, wet t-shirt and wearing a flower pot isn't really the best way to portray yourself to the world, but what the hell, this is a typical UK summer look. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change. And isn't that another British obsession, the weather. I guess its because its so changeable. On Monday and Tuesday of this week it was sweltering but yesterday I was wrapped up in a big jumper as I worked at my desk - shivering away. But today is a good day - its cold and wet and all that and I was thinking that being as its Thursday it will surely be a nothing day - and then what do you know, I wrote a poem. Not something I am well known for - here it is, in all its unedited glory, written in about five minutes at 6am this morning while I sat in my boxers and t-shirt drinking earl grey tea while Max the Cat did the hokey-cokey, in and out and shaking it all about. Poor Max, doesn't seem to know what she wants these days, wonder if I will get that when I am old too. Anyway, here is the Thursday poem while I shake down my linen suit to take to Scotland tomorrow - for my Dad's 81st birthday and P's wedding to her famous Scottish footballer:

Thursday is the strangest day
its not in the middle
nor at the end
but somewhere inbetween
its not the start of the weekend
nor the start of the week
just somewhere inbetween
I rarely eat pork on Thursdays
can't ever remember kissing a frog on that day either
curiously Thursday has never been memorable for me
just somewhere inbetween
and yet I don't know what I would do without it
it does mean its not Wednesday, yay
and Friday is getting closer, yay again
so we are inbetween
saying goodbye to the week
and yay to the weekend
at a staging post between then and what will be
looking back at the week and forward to the weekend
somewhere inbetween

Of course now you might be wondering what the picture (aside) refers to - huh? Well its part of the 17th Biennale of Sydney and I am going for a couple days on the way back from Cranberry - you can see details here to see why I am exited: http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/ but I like this idea, Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, I guess we all have some of them. I know I have posted this before but it takes me back to Edinburgh when me and R. queued for tickets to see BS and are such great mates and I am going to see him on Saturday for lunch I hope, we get so little time together and we will probably end up talking about The Clash in Glasgow, och:

So anyway - here's an Oz art pic for the moment - it might be my boy Icarus, for who can tell what he looks like now - we can only wonder at the wonder:

Oh - and I stumbled across this song - been a long time since I heard it, crap vid but love it:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Summer seems to have arrived, gardens of wisteria, lilac, clematis and jasmine, vying with early roses and ground cover flowers are flourishing. I will posy (sic - post) some garden pictures (after the snow) later this morning, for it is only 6.30 on a Sunday morning here. I am drinking the obligatory early grey while listening to the new Jackson Brown/David Lindley album - Love Is Strange - which is a summer joy, it is summer music and if you get the chance give it a go. Once again its just a couple of old guys in the kitchen idea - though its live, nice. It has been the Brighton Festival these past couple of weeks and the last Sundays have been spent in OPEN HOUSES. They houses that are turned into art exhibition spaces. This year I have been very good and restricted myself to two small sculptures, one is a Blue Fish by Kate Lulham and the other is a Crouching Girl by Agness Chevalier (which I will give to my niece as a wedding present). But there was a lot more I coveted, like a gorgeous patchwork silk quilt - thing is, what would I do with it. I don't live in a Homes and Gardens home but a shambling Victorian pile of rooms on three floors. On any given day I could use three of the rooms and D. a separate three and we would only cross in the kitchen - actually we do that because when D. isn't in his room or watching TV or playing pool in the attic he EATS! He cooks pizza and has it with three iced buns - I mean three, why three? Still at least I know he would survive, his meatballs and pasta (his number one food) was voted best meal in Home Economics last term. He said it was the Basil that made all the difference without telling them it was already included in the jar of Ragu we tipped into the Tupperware bowl with the meatballs so he could take them to school safely - but hey, one day he will cook for some girl, pasta with meatballs in basil and tomato, with a salad on the side (a bag of leaves, sliced cucumber and some tomatoes - might even chop in some mozzarella) and as she sips her small glass of Chianti (might be an iced Pinot Grigio) she will think, this aint bad! And it won't be, it'll be heaven on a plate, love on the table and stars in their eyes, I'll drink my early earl grey to that. And so, since I have been talking about - Jackson Browne and David Lindley, here they are, have posted these guys before but I like this, enjoy, I am off to the gym:

Ok - gym done and dusted, breakfast gone, orange juice drunk - and now pictures taken. This is this morning's summer garden. This is the long view (not very long as can be seen)

This is the other side as we pull the lens back
Closing in makes it a bigger jungle than it really is - the power of the camera that always lies:
As you close in you can see more detail, Meercats are not common in Brighton but this little guy brings a smile to the serious:
And finally moving even close up we can say, isn't it lovely - that was the garden at 11am this Sunday morning - tomorrow A. will be seventeen but we will celebrate it today because we are all working tomorrow - and this "onion" is for her:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

And the good news is the new guitar is sitting beside me (and all the others) while I type so I now have no reason for delaying planned recording any longer. My intention is to record all the songs I have written this past couple of years using guitar, banjo, mandolin, slide guitar, piano and assorted other bits and bobs. As can be seen from the pile of books stacked against the fireplace too, time is the problem - with so much work to do already but I like to think of this room as my version of the garden shed. Somewhere to potter around as the inevitable slip into middle age (well... perhaps my final trimester) confronts my sensibility - or is that me clutching to my musical past. Who cares, if Dylan, Jagger and Richard are still alive there has to be hope for me - surely. And so the next chorus I am going to write a song around is:

And I will be waiting,
waiting down here,
waiting to walk
to the end of the pier.

Wish me luck - though I am not walking "off" the end of the pier - not yet! But walking on the wild side has some appeal - and tons of charm for such a sleazy song. This song accompanied me from Edinburgh to London and then to Brighton in my time of awakening. At least that is how it felt then - and when I look back, well, nostalgia being a return to a place the never existed, it will suffice as a memory for me. Though I can honestly say the last thirty years have been better than the first twenty-five, so that has to be good. David Eagleman has written in his book SUM: Tales From the Afterlife that, "As the happy result of a free-market capitalist society, we are finally able to determine our own hereafter... to forever live in a virtual world... It is no surprise that everyone is lining up for this avant-garde afterlife..." Well I don't know about free-market capitalism because I would choose the life I have, steeped in left of centre politics, a musical heritage to die for, a glass of wine when I feel the urge and surrounded by people, words, sounds, smells and love - if this is avant-garde I am already living it.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Pink t-shirt, pink car and hidden under glasses pink eyes. This picture is me and my fantasy car in a fantasy land (USA) taken by D. when we took a trip there. A whole week of riding roller-coasters, such a gas and D. said he would love to do it all over again - though not with me I suspect. But I love roller-coasters, the speed; the thrill; the slow climb up the slope and then the drop, wooosh... and this picture is one of our favourites. The slow climb then the drop that embraces gravity with accelerated pace - a double wooosh with double espresso and two lumps of sugar stirred in - and then we are falling to earth, Icarus-like and the thrill of the fall, the speed of the drop, the exhilaration is as good as the flight - I fall, I sink, I expire... time for some noisy music:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

I am getting a new guitar, how cool is that, as cool as I look here? Well you can speculate, surely! This is the guitar I am getting and I am so excited I can hardly wait to play it in the garden - and what with summer coming too, it is a timely addition to the pile. It has been an odd couple if days because we are "voting" today and the lead up to an election is always stranger than most days. In my street alone there are posters for Labour; Lib Dems and the Green party - no Tory; BNP or UKIP but I bet they lurk behind their curtains, snooping on the rest of us - oops does that give me away, or am I lurking behind a curtain too by laying a false trail? And this curtain idea reminds me of something I read recently by a poet I know:

Every story begins in silence. The house. The things inside the house.

Everything outside the house silent, and straining to hear

the quiet closing of a door in a

dwelling where no foot falls

And I am hoping she doesn't mind me quoting it - actually too bad if she does, that's blogging for you. Its by Jen Webb and her collection entitled Proverbs from Sierra Leone. I am also currently reading another fantastic collection of poetry, Chora, by Nigel McLoughlin - who is another friend and he sent me the most delightful hardback copy. How lucky is that, folks who send you books of poetry, people who give you guitars (thanks Neil) and fantastic songs like this to listen to - which was also sent to me. I am a lucky boy - oh and I have a new name, yesterday I was Dadobiel (I know not why but D. has a rationale) and today I became Dadorooney (cheers A.) but its nice to have a change every now and then - after all, papa was a rolling stone:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

I have seen bizarre guitars in my time but this one for the "octopus" is the strangest. Actually is a work of art by Rudi Mantofani but hey - I can make up a story. I have a new guitar story though. D. was playing his own guitar yesterday - in fact playing Paul McCartney's Blackbird and guess what, he is going to show me how to play it. How did that happen - he just sneaked up and played something he can teach me. And that is such a good feeling when that happens. Then I helped him with his Macbeth homework, though, so its a fair swap. And there we were, swapping guitar stuff and I played some slide over something he was doing and it was such good fun. Bit like these two guys because I thought, time to check out some new music for a change and these two playing together seemed to hit the bill. Its a bit rough in places but they are just hanging together, enjoy:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

It is early to be writing this, about 6.30 on a Saturday morning and I have been up since, ooh, 5.30 because I can never sleep these days. But it does mean I get to see a lot of sunrises - though the screech cat doing the hokey-cokey, in and out, shaking it all about is a distraction. I received a gift yesterday, it came by post, a book entitled Barrie Kosky on ecstasy in a series entitled Little Book on Big Themes, Melbourne University Press, and its just the most wonderful little book. Indeed, I am so taken with it I am planning to contact the press about a potential title. Anyway, Kosky in a section on Lenny Bernstein and Mahler's Second Symphony quotes part of the libretto:

Mit Flugel, die ich mir errungen

In heissen Liebesstreben

Werd ich entschweben

Zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug

gedrungen!

(With wings that I have gained

Shall I soar aloft

In love's ardent striving

To the light to which no eye has

pierced)

And I am once again fascinated by the wings and flying and the theme of ecstasy in the Icarian theme. Kosky describes Bernstein as flying, "I was electrified. Did music really have the power to do this to a human body?" "Bereite dich zu leben!" (Prepare thyself to live!) - the Icarian connections just fly in and out of my field of vision, like the pair of blackbirds who have built a nest in the ivy growing up my back wall, ever recognisable, back again (they must have enjoyed last year so much - one likes to hope - and of course the screech cat just yawns as they peck for worms in the lawn, her own flying days are but dreams for she sleeps more than anything). And now I am off to the gym - where I heard this track come round on my iPod, long time no hear but I like it: