FiftyFive ~ # 55

Finishing The Ghost in the Caribbean was one of my year's targets and I am happy to say it was achieved - well into first edit stage. And this is the last page just before I stepped out into the Caribbean dawn - which can be seen from the next picture, below. This is the view from the balcony - which I had to endure every morning. But still, someone has to.

The summer has taken that kind of turn though. I finished the novel I have been writing for a couple of years - in the vain hope that someone will publish it. Its called The Ghost of Joe DiMaggio, fingers crossed. But then I came home to the news that Routledge have commissioned two academic books from me - so its all good on the writing front. Especially alright too since the Icarus Project is growing legs too (or is that wings) and has become 3 pieces of writing to be planned and written - which is very exciting indeed. But flying out of Paris last week this song came on my iPod - The Whole of the Moon, by Mike Scott (an old Edinburgh bod) and the lyrics are definitely Icarian - and from Daedalus' point of view. It has been one of my all time fave songs for years and I can't think why it never occurred to me in this context - so I am embedding it here with the lyric - and when I get the chance I will write to Mike and ask if we can include it in one of the Icarus projects - yay;

I pictured a rainbow

You held it in your hands

I had flashes

But you saw the plan

I wandered out in the world for years

While you just stayed in your room

I saw the crescent

You saw the whole of the moon

You were there in the turnstiles

With the wind at your heels

You stretched for the starts

And you know how it feels

To reach too high

Too far

Too soon

You saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded

While you filled the skies

I was dumbfounded by truth

You cut through lies

I saw the rain dirty valley

You saw Brigadoon

I saw the crescent

You saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings

You just flew

I wondered I guessed and I tried

You just knew

I sighed... but you swooned!

I saw the crescent

You saw the whole of the moon

With a torch in your pocket

And the wind at your heels

You climbed on the ladder

And you know how it feels

To get too high

Too far too soon

You saw the whole of the moon

The whole of the moon!

Unicorns and cannonballs

Palaces and piers

Trumpets towers and tenements

Wide oceans full of tears

Flags rags ferryboats

Scimitars and scarves

Every precious dream and vision

Underneath the stars

You climbed on the ladder

With the wind in your sails

You came like a comet

Blazing your trail

Too high too far too soon

You saw the whole of the moon

FiftyFive ~ # 55

And this needs time and patience and a smile - I should start a radio station:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

I am posting this for myself because it has loads of my best players on it - and its a a BD song, actually one of his very best - and I am in that kind of mood. I can drink the night away or I can listen to great players - Jerry and Danny are on this too - ooo

FiftyFive ~ # 55

I just had to post this because its sooooooo good! John Martyn and Danny Thompson doing Solid Air for probably the last time together. Last time I saw John he was trying to steal a wooden toilet seat.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Jerry Douglas is one of my favourite guitar players and I wanted to embed his - Tribute to Peadar O'Donnell/Takarasaka with; Danny Thompson on bass; Aly Bain on fiddle; Ronan Browne on whistle & pipes; Russ Barenberg on guitar; Donald Shaw on accordion and percussion by Tommy Hayes but alas I can't, so you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktjlu0BjOkM from the Transatlantic Sessions series 2 (1998), which was a great show in ITV. But those of you who can't wait can see this paired down version - superb!

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Returning from Australia and then going out to the Caribbean may sound exotic - and indeed it was but its like chasing yourself around the world. A good friend once told me that jet lag was where the body travels but the soul still has to catch up. Well if I have a soul its somewhere between here and there. Still, how can I complain, it would seem churlish to do so. The curious thing about being away is you lose touch with the world and what is going on and I am not sure I am quite grasping it yet. So I will post this short posting, with a song by Alison Krauss and Union Station.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

A new self portrait - and a new haircut for the Caribbean, where I travel to tomorrow (via Paris). Snapping yourself can be odd because you can't frame the shot, so here I have a picture of the front and the back of my head (via the mirror) but more than that, there is a snap of one wall in the kitchen with a sun growing out of my head. Still, what else can we expect from a self portrait, except I look older in the picture than I do when I look in the same mirror - strange that, dont you think? I am now on my final tidy up - some marking, a report to write up and then final packing (boy style - sock, boxers, some bathing trunks and t-shirts and then books - carefully tucked between the packing called clothes). I plan to read this poem in better detail on the plane - have printed it out, but it was sent to me from Australia and I rather like it:
Jack Gilbert, failing and flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work.
That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that.
Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

And here is my new favourite pop group, I Am Kloot:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

When I was in Australia, history was made - see previous posts, below. Remarkable as it may seem, a woman was made Prime Minister. As a result the esteemed Professor Jen Webb from the University of Canberra (right at the seat of the Australian Parliament) has offered the following film for circulation - lest things get out of hand. Therefore I use this space to do so. I realise politicising this blog may be a problem, but let's face it: THIS IS SERIOUS! Life as we know it is at stake!

Though of course, after that we will need some cheery music to bring us back to earth - take it easy. I am not a huge Eagles fan but I do like this song - and a good Joe Walsh solo to boot:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

New jeans and guitar means the annual clothes budget has been spent but that'll do just nicely. What has to be confessed is this is the first time in forty years that I have gone up a dress size (well waist) still, can't complain since it is the result of good living and a healthy diet now that gluten free is working - and I am not starving to death.

Two more pictures of Australia won't go amiss here and therefore here they are, both taken from the ferry back from cockatoo island. Oh and a Travelling Wilbury track from a traveller