Icarus in a City of Immigrants

Oklahoma Blues

Big Little Bruv and Little Big Sis

Oklahoma blues is what you get when you have to leave your daughter behind (pictured here with her bigger little brother). Even knowing she is enjoying herself only helps to soften the blow a little. But still, we must soldier on. A fantastic four days in New York convinced me that it is one of the really real cities in the world - I just loved it. The Guggenheim was half closed but the Metropolitan was too big (for one trip) so it was all a load of fun; Central Park, Madison Square; Broadway; Ellis Island; Chinatown; Little Italy; SoHo; the Empire State Building, sigh - so far, so far, so high to see so far. But in Oklahoma I wouldn't look out of place dressed as I am in this picture above - hat an' all, y'all! And it was great to see Abbi, of course. The Okie campus is absolutely amazing, its like a small town and I will post pictures in time because now I have to write a paper for Dublin, as well as catching up with piles and piles and piles of work - we will go out enjoying ourselves in the city of immigrants:

Icarus on Time # 1

Time

I have been thinking about time and how time is something we crave yet waste and devour at the same time; a lunch with a fizzy wine with elderflower and blackberry; a poem by Neruda, or perhaps extracts from Ondaatje's English Patient, painting and painting and soothing those bandages and the winds that blow through the desert, sneaking a read and pretending we are working but are reading just for the sake of reading... and then this song on time, nothing lasts for long... an Unchained Melody - Oh my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch... and time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much, are you still mine... I need your love... I need need your love, god speed your love to me... how do they do that with a song. I will post the original soon but this - down by the Chinese Cafe... in a memory, one more time... an unchained melody... time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much...

Icarus skimming the surface # 1

Snowing again

I seem to have less and less to say these days, my inarticulacy is taking over my ability to communicate and talking is just a chore which I can barely manage. I wonder why that is? Tripping over the inarticulacy of my sense of self. I really don't know what it is. Antonin Artaud said,

When we speak the word 'life', it must

be understood we are not referring to life

as we know it from its surface of facts,

but to that fragile, fluctuating centre which

forms never reach.

Is that the problem? The 'fragile, fluctuating centre which / forms never reach...' where, as Yeats said, 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...' I don't know. All I know is that it snowed over the weekend and that is a 'surface of facts' because that snowy surface sprinkling masks so much more:

How am I supposed to feel,

how am I supposed to be,

how am I supposed to understand

the many things I cannot see...

Some music methinks, W.B. Yeats and Joni Mitchell in collaboration with choreographer Jean Grand-Maitre of the Alberta Ballet Company created this modern ballet that speaks volumes of Mitchell's life-long concerns about environmental neglect and warring mankind - culture or wot? Sorry its just a snatch but its better than nothing: