Icarus @ 59 # 78

I have had  a long two days, full on for dissertations and the most important things in a student life. I am full on for that... talking them through what they have been doing for a long time... and at this tender age its their life, it is ALL that matters... I realise I have no idea how my students see me. Not as their tutor or supervisor or as the person trying to help them negotiate their lives, but this picture was me a while back when I first started this blog and I remain the same. I like to write and, well, do stuff... all the time, I hate being idle. Tonight, this is a very late posting of the blog of my 60th year but, hmm, soz, I have been busy... I seriously wish (and you can quote me) that there was more sex, drugs and rock and roll in all my posts, I can do the nice stuff and the poetry, but hey... I am a man of my time, but also, while I am still nursing this mess up of a leg problem I have, there is this background thought that says, I think, jeez I am a lucky bloke... if anyone wants to know the truth... especially my amazing sisters... I am still having the most fantastic life... Me, my and mates Davie, Rocky and Alex Sharp saw this guy do this then, in real time, and right now I am thinking about Michael Griffiths who took me to France and the Rolling Stones!

Icarus @ 59 # 77

New glasses are there to help you see the world more clearly. I am hoping, therefore, to live a rose-tinted life from now, although I guess the chances are paradoxical - fat and slim. Oh well, but paradoxes are one of those things that take us through life. This year we are commemorating the First World War, what a tragedy. I don't have a huge amount of time to explore the issues here (I have a long day ahead with an early drive) but I have been thinking about The Subaltern, which is a poem that haunted my youth - since my father told me stories about his father and the war. And to some extent, those experience are what made us today - some sacrifice...

He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze 
And fresh face slowly brightening to the grin 
That sets my memory back to summer days, 
With twenty runs to make, and last man in. 
He told me he’d been having a bloody time
In trenches, crouching for the crumps to burst, 
While squeaking rats scampered across the slime 
And the grey palsied weather did its worst.

But as he stamped and shivered in the rain,

My stale philosophies had served him well;

Dreaming about his girl had sent his brain

Blanker than ever—she’d no place in Hell....

‘Good God!’ he laughed, and slowly filled his pipe,

Wondering ‘why he always talked such tripe’.

If looks could kill they probably will in games without frontiers... 

Icarus @ 59 # 76

Quirky probably best describes the town I live in and I while I have posted pictures of the odd Pavilion and the broken West Pier, the town never fails to reveal new things - like the frontage of this shop in the North Laine. I passed this on Sunday, just mooching, and I made a mental note to look in to purchase another copy of Maus. But what prompted me to write about Brighton (again) is the tolerance (something that novel knows a great deal about). In Uganda, gays are being persecuted, in Arizona, you can refuse to serve a 'gay' in a shop or restaurant, in Brighton, to see guys holding hands and kissing in the street, girls so unashamedly into each other the world is only their stage on Sunday morning walks on the promenade, and its just as I expect it. Brighton has one of the highest gay populations in in the UK. When I was told that I asked, why does anyone know that? Why is it even important? I guess it might be, demographic figures are great for market research etc but the idea of a national graph… hmm. When I went into the 'full and busy' Mau Mau for brunch on Sunday, the two guys who smiled and said sit with us, we're going in a minute, knew I wouldn't baulk at such a generous offer. What would I have had to be intolerant of; their manners, their generosity, their shirts, their teasing that I wasn't to steal their tip (no they didn't say that, they knew I wouldn't)? I honestly didn't know if they were gay or not, and why would it matter? It might be mere fancy, but when I first heard this song I declared the first line as the best ever written. I stand by that, it speaks of hope for all the would be lovers in the world, whichever gender they prefer… sing it, sing it, once more with feeling...

Icarus @ 59 # 75

With one child in Oklahoma (it was New Mexico at the weekend) and another in Tanzania, with a huge time zone separating both, here in Brighton we have become the decentred parents. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one child may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. But that, I guess, is the place of parenting and we have to be happy that they had the confidence to travel so far, knowing they could and will, in time, return. And when they do they will know that in Brighton (not Worthing - for those who know the play) they can think freely and for themselves, which is what (we hope) we sent them out to do.

Icarus @ 59 # 74

Africa is like no continent I have ever been to. Cape Town is my only experience of it but immediately you realise it is not Europe or America, its somewhere other and different and strange and African skies are huge and different again. Yet there is an earthiness which feels like a homecoming and that is hard to explain. And the good news is that Dan arrived and was met and ate and said hello and then hit a bed for the first time since Friday morning. I hope his dreams are as wonderful as the sky he will be living and working under. W. H. Auden once said that, 'A literary critic should declare his dreams of Eden because honesty demands that he describe it to his readers so that they may be in a position to judge his judgements.' I can go with that but all too often the best critics are songwriters and singers, these guys know how to sing it well, I know not how authentic Tanzanian it is but its the closest I can get for now - a close mix of western and eastern influences here, almost like a reggae and bangra mix in the early days - room for Dad dancing here though, feel the sway. My boy is in Africa, can you see the smile in the words:

Icarus @ 59 # 73

A busy time for me means jumping from project to project, writing here, marking there, picking up this, that, and then more and more stuff arrives by email until all the balls are in the air and you think, phew. I bought a new book today that I need just to keep up with a PhD student, and my own reading, of course. This is an old picture I have posted before but this was the state of my desk this morning, editing the Lyrical Future of Nostalgia essay (hopefully for publication) and the problem I have is that at 6500 words I could write tons more. Never mind, though, this desk is one of my favourite places in the whole world. Its comfy, easy on the eye, cluttered with stuff the kids have bought me over the years and all the books I really like are in easy access. But its peaceful demeanour is all a disguise which hides the fact that we had a sleepless night. Dan was stuck in Dubai, first the plane to Tanzania was late, then they sat on it for 3 hours, then it was cancelled. Emirates had no contingency, they had no hotel and so he spent the night in the terminal, with instructions to check every hour, which he kept us posted on. But now, fingers crossed, he has boarded and is on his way - fingers crossed too that he is now in the air. Life is full of ups and downs and then a sleepless night becomes a minor blip in the roller-coaster of Brighton life; this song is like a plane timetable, unreliable, I know this because I have kissed some classy girls in bars, oh yes:

Icarus @ 59 # 72

His wings are tied on, not with string and wax but super fast, double Boing engines and jet fuel and that is ok. He is already in Dubai waiting for the connecting flight, which is late but that is ok too. I know because he txt me. All those miles away the txt arrives with a steam train whistle into my phone, saying, all ok, delayed by two hours, but all ok. That all ok, means all in the world and for now that is all I need to know. And so the  early grey tea soothes in the morning, as the sun begins to appear above the houses out the back. And I will play my guitar in the kitchen, knowing its what he would expect because nothing changes, except him not being there, reading the Sports pages in The Guardian while supping Cheerios. The cheerios were said last night, and I was fine, just fine… they only get him temporarily but I for all time. We listen to this in the car all the time - I belong to you, you belong to me, in my sweet heart:

Icarus @ 59 # 71

Today my boy is off to Tanzania to work for Medicare and its such a brave move, getting on a plane that changes in Dubai and travelling to a continent he has never been to before, and still only 18 - I envy his spirit and his jeux de vivre, he is so excited. There remains little to be said really, except I hope he has a really fantastic time and that he doesn't miss his mother and I one little bit. I will miss him, of course, but that's ok too… I will Dad dance at my desk and smile when I think of him because he can't see me making a Dad fool of myself. I have posted this song before but what the hell, up you get, come on, no slackers, yup, that's the way, Tekere, dancing under an African sky…

Icarus @ 59 # 70

A tale of two pictures. As the crumbling landmark known as the West Pier decides on its own fate its a mark of time future and time past. One of the great phenomena to take over parts of the UK - Brighton included - is the annual 'murmuring' of the starlings. Indeed I experience a small one in my garden every year as they plunder the ripening figs on my tree. But it is an awesome sight as they flashmob the Pavilion and then the West Pier (not the Palace Pier which is way too noisy). Its quite something special to see indeed. And I like the term used to describe it, murmuring, which followed on from yesterday's 'Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear…' And so there is only one track that really goes with this - and superb it is too. Another dreich day but much to be done so the early grey tea started early while this played - how dare the premier reject my invitation:

Icarus @ 59 # 68

Yesterday I read that Sapho described poetry as 'Mere air…' to be more precise she is reported to have said, 'Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear…' Like this balloon aside, there is nothing to it, a little soapy water and something to pick it up with so it can catch the mere air. And wouldn't it be nice if we could send these bubbles out into the world, holding the mere air of poetry and songs. Every time one popped you could catch a breathe of W. H. Auden, or Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickenson, the list goes on… pop, there goes another, pop, William Carlos Williams,

According to Brueghel

When Icarus fell

It was spring…

Pop, are you listening?

Pop, can you hear the mere air?

Pop…

I don't know if Robbie Burns wrote this as a poem or a lyric for a song but hey, its been a long time since I heard it and as I write this at 5.10 am before I drive to Winchester I wish I had it for the car - mere air in a bubble, pop, dae yeh hear it?

Icarus @ 59 # 67 part two

My friend Mike is balancing his heart and his brain at the moment because he is in a hospital in Brisvegas. I am assured its not so much of a gamble and that he is in great hands but all the same I am posting him my serious best wishes and hope to see him soon. Dig in Mickle, I hope you like this very noisy song I am posting for you:

So throw those curtains wide
One day like this a year would see me right

Icarus @ 59 # 67

This was Sunday morning in Brighton. The colours don't do the scene justice because it was a gorgeous day and the camera filtered out the overload of sunlight, and this is despite the storms that swept over the country as late as the night before, but the first the first chance and the boats are out. I like living by the sea. I don't look at it every day, though I am aware of it, but I miss seeing it if I leave it too long. So every now and then I mosie down the hill just the breathe it in, just to take a view and imagine the potential. If I were to sail south from this picture I would end up in France, and it has been a long time since I went there, too long and maybe I will think about going soon. When I was writing my PhD we used to go all the time. Just for the day and I will post about such trips later. This song as about Salters Road, Fala Dam and Prestonpans on the Firth of Forth, which is not far from where I grew up, just a cycle down the road, and my sisters live there still, not far from my Dad, and I have been thinking about that coastline, and them…

Icarus @ 59 # 66

Yesterday the sun shone and I was walking early
down to watch the Brighton half marathon
down past the junk tree
down past the folly
called the pavillion


down towards the landmark that should be erected
in Cathedral Close in Winchester
which would shake that sleepy town space
but more than that
the giant wheel could be attached to a water pump
and we could go Dutch 
and live
with the water… live with the water… live with the water
Sunday was a restful day
I made breakfast, walked into town, watched the running, cursed my leg, bought coffee, baked bread, lit a fire, peeled potatoes, cursed my leg,  chopped veg, cooked a dinner, played three guitars and a piano and a piano sounding like a string quartet, cursed my leg, strummed a mandolin, sighed, tuned a uke and played that too and then poured a cold glass of chablis…
the glass misted as the cold wine hit the sides, echoing the sigh I had cast earlier… 
yesterday I posted Brighton in the storm
today the wind changed and so too the weather
and today I changed
like the weather...
like the weather...
like the weather, like the weather… we live like the weather, with the rain, with the sun, with the changes, but we live and change and live and change and live and ride that roller-coaster that sits 
at the end of the road
at the end of the line
at the end of the pier…
Brighton came half alive today
and soon it will be whole
soon it will be whole
because the wind will change like the weather
like the weather...
like the weather…
like the weather...

Icarus @ 59 # 65

I am hoping this is all coming to an end but  sometimes we forget that its only weather. Though it could also be a metaphor for the way we come to feel, the roller-coaster of emotional life, the ups and downs of story weather. But while some blame the weather for emotional cycles, others blame the stars or the lunar cycle. Last night, February 15, 2014, the full-looking, waning, gibbous moon followed Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation, west, and I watched it from my back door. Its Sunday morning and Song for Athene sounds just right for the time of day/week/month/year:

Icarus @ 59 # 64

This is a picture of my favourite guitar. Its called Norman, at least that is the make and I sit with this nestled on my lap daily. Everything about it, the shape, the size, the feel of the natural, wild cherry wood and rosewood fingerboard and the sound is as sweet as the fruit the wild cherry tree produces. And that is all I am going say this morning because I will be taking Dan to his job as a football coach after having played this for too long instead of writing. Sometimes needs must. Its been a stormy week and while the sun's coming over the house, there is thunder on the skyline…

Icarus @ 59 # 63

Its easy to stand back in awe of your kids and to bask in their progress, indeed its a serious requirement of parenting. But taking credit for their gene pool is not something I have ever done. And this weekend Diane runs the Brighton Half Marathon as a training run for the full marathon and later the New York marathon. Its a gruelling regime and the discipline is extraordinary, indeed little has really changed since Pheidippides carried a message from the Battle of Marathon to Athens all those years ago and it is a serious call, makes my 5 am rise for a 6 am run to Winchester a breeze in the park since I will be driving. But as you can see, the gene pool was her call and I am so glad for that. Happy Friday, the weather is, I am, and so are you, where else can we be...

Icarus @ 59 # 62

I read an interesting quotation from Maxine Du Camp this morning as I contemplated the first early grey of the day, 'History is like Janus, it has two faces: whether it looks at the past or the present, it sees the same things.' It is interesting that history constantly repeats itself but I guess its because fundamental human nature doesn't change. Progress is charted through technological and scientific change but the resilience, patience, benevolence, joy, misery, love, violence, et al of human nature changes very slowly through the centuries of our evolution. Indeed, even Janus faced is too simplistic because we would have to look both sideways, up and down too. Imagine having 100% vision, it must be awful being an all seeing God, watching your word and world being translated so badly by so many. But this is not a day for navel-gazing-doom-laden thoughts. My cup of early grey is still half full, 'Inherent in the gaze is the expectation to receive a response from the one to whom it gives itself,' said wise Walter Benjamin. If you smile at me today I promise to smile back. But I will smile at you anyway because everyone is entitled to receive that and maybe if we offered more in a smile every day there would indeed be less misery around - here's tae us, wha's like us? Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe and I will buy a bottle of wine - oh your a mean old daddy but I like you:

Icarus @ 59 # 61

Yesterday I wrote, 'if I am honest there has been a beacon guiding me all my life. I don't really consider myself as having done anything to deserve the life I have or indeed have experienced thus far but there is a light somewhere that draws me through.' I could affirm this with platitudes, like I have worked hard all my life to get lucky. I have been working a long time without a break, 45 years and counting. I started with two paper rounds at the age of 14 and my son Dan has this ethic too. Every Tuesday morning he volunteers at the County Hospital, he works twice a week as a volunteer for Scope, he works as a football coach every Saturday morning at Preston Park Soccer School and three days a week he works in Sainsburys in town. But that's not to say he doesn't have time for rest and recreation, last night he was at football, which he loves, and the team (all men and older than him with only one exception) call him Rosie, which he loves too. But soon he will be off to Africa, working awhile for Medicare and then later onto Australia where he will be working on a conservation project, and he writes too, oh, and so well, and then finally he will go to University, via a visit to his sister in the USA.  A couple of days ago I wrote about temporaIity and indeed our children are only on loan to us so we can help them to grow - sigh, because at the end of it all we own nothing of them except our memories. I stole this poem from a friend's fb site and its sentiment is great, 'We never belonged to you. You never found us. It was always the other way around.' I'll miss him terribly when he goes but I am also pleased he chose me as his dad:

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room, 
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way around.
~ Margaret Atwood~

I hear a lot of this band leaking out of Dan's room and we used to listen to them in the car all the time, into the mosh pit, 'I don't care if you don't care...'

Icarus @ 59 # 60

Ooh, post 60 of 365, the number 60 looms like a ghost in the shadows but never mind, I am sure there will be a beacon guiding me. Actually if I am honest there has been a beacon guiding me all my life. I don't really consider myself as having done anything to deserve the life I have or indeed have experienced thus far but there is a light somewhere that draws me through. But I am kidding, 60 is just a number (a big one I will admit) but yesterday something wonderful happened and that wonderful things continue to happen, almost daily, is an optimists road. My Dad, age 85, txt me, thanking me for sending his Kindle. Can you credit it, this is man who didn't read books three years ago and now he is texting about a Kindle. I tip my hat. And its great that along with my BiL I can load him up with books. This picture is the lighthouse in Newhaven Harbour and the sea is the Firth of Forth - I took it last year and if you were standing at the end and looked to the right, from this point you would be able to see Fife. I only say this because I am going back this year to the same spot at the same time and I am looking forward to it. But here is a coincidence, I was walking along this strip, taking pictures and listening to my iPod at the same time, whilst waiting on a couple of dear friends of mine. I was so pre-occupied with the camera and the music in my ears, that when the man walking towards me held his arms out for a hug I was, well, as I said to his daughter, later, I thought I had pulled. Then I realised they had come early - not sure if I was disappointed or relieved. Isn't it odd though that I didn't recognise one of my best friends until he was almost right on top of me, so to speak. Anyway, next time I visit this spot will be the time for another post - watch this space (do I say that a lot - goodness I have many spaces to fill). He would have approved of me listening to this as he approached (we have come a long way) - ooh but I could listen to this song a long time and I have it in the car - but isn't this a laugh, its The Rolling Stones looking like The New York Dolls; life imitates art more than art imitates life, said Oscar Wilde in 1889 (yow, what would he have made of Sochi - and so the tables turn and stories run):

Icarus @ 59 # 59

This picture was a gift from David Hockney. Well, he posted it online for only a few hours (as I remember it) and said we who knew about it could download it - so I did. I adore the colour. But I display it here because this blog started as 55 @ 55 which was supposed to be 55 blogs at 55 and then it kept going, and today I am posting 59 # 59. This year the blog is very simple, its an effort to spend ten minutes recording something every single day of my sixtieth year. My plan is to eventually print them all out as a single collection and perhaps as ten minute selections they aren't quite going to represent anything except the doodles that often they are (like this one now). But sometimes that is just the fabric of life we lead. But also, later on in my life, it will allow me to review them and think about other things that are evoked, provoked and stoked. Well that's the thought. Whatever, though, it will be possible for me to reflect on a whole year when oft-times we tend to forget some of the little things we think about. Italo Calvino addresses this in Invisible Cities and I am quite fond of this idea where... “Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”  I have a broken bicycle, or at least a bike I currently can't ride, due to a dodgy leg, dodgy weather and stuff to do. So my target for myself is to get on my bike as soon as I possibly can - watch this space. Life is full of the ephemeral and I guess this blog proves that, but very few songwriters catch the poetic form of Tom Waits on the subject:
Broken bicycles, old busted chains
With rusted handle bars, out in the rain
Somebody must have an orphanage for
All these things that nobody wants any more...

Icarus @ 59 # 58

Temporality  is traditionally the linear progression of past, present and future, we are born, we live, we die, but you don't have to be a philosopher to realise that clock time, calendar  time, the day-to-day travel of time is not spiritual time, epiphanic time, nostalgic, memory time… I could go on but I am returning to nostalgic, the word is an amalgamation of the Greek νόστος (nóstos), meaning "homecoming", and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". Now the word ἄλγος (álgos) comes from Homer's Odyssey and suddenly, on the back of those Icarus wings we are etymologically transported back to Odysseus in the 8th Century BC and a representation of one of the first literary heroes to be caught in the nostalgic mode. But we can link to these ideas in many ways, though poetry and thought and music, for example, John Tavener wrote about the Orthodox feast of the Protecting Veil which commemorates the 10th Century apparition of Mary, the Theotokos, in Constantinople. Whether we believe the apparition idea of Mary or even Odysseus' epic journey is of little matter, what matters is the memory that throughout time things have been and will always be, remembered and commemorated in art, and like the West Pier above (now crumbling into the sea) while our stay may be temporal it has nothing to do with our time of being and remembering. Well anyway that's what I was thinking (while writing) this morning, while drinking early grey tea at the kitchen table and listening to this - happy Sunday:

Icarus @ 59 # 57

Sochi 2014 and the Olympic rings have changed. We could be flippant about such a faux pas but there is something interesting about this unintended icon. The HUGE issue about the Sochi games is surely the LBGT one (though I hesitate to rest on that single issue in a repressive state). But this new Olympic icon could come to represent so much more. The inclusive rings of the Olympic spirit - well inclusive for all except those frozen out (i.e., in the snowflake that didn't open into one of the famous rings). But for me to make this as a suggestion I would have to gain support. I will try to write it for The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/uk Of course, the worrying thing is that the person responsible for the faux pas is probably already losing his job and perhaps more - is there elite life on Mars?

Icarus @ 59 # 56

This week I have been thinking about Icarus and flying boys, and my Dan will be off to Africa soon. Such an adventure and just the kind of thing I would have done at his age. But also thinking about a new writing project and flight and flying boys in trying to get an idea settled. And then I got distracted, sitting with the gammy leg up, I was re-reading some old essays I had printed out,  especially Antonia Pont's 'Intimacy and Making' in AXON. It is on Rilke's beautifully written The first elegy where he wrote:

Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic

orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his
stronger existence. For beauty’s nothing
but the beginning of terror we’re still just able to bear,
and we find it so bewitching since it serenely
disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.

Its the wonder, could anyone withstand the embrace of an angel? Its just a notion, floating on the back of feather in a dry tempest (not in the bloody rain we are enduring  - I didn't think I had ever actually experienced 24 hour rain before, all day and all night but its been all year nearly - feathers could never float on that breeze). Sometimes Jan Garbarek does it for me - allows for contemplation and thought about angels and reckless flying boys while it rains outside, sigh, how it rains and rains and rains:

Icarus @ 59 # 55

Sochi is not a word or a place that immediately sprung to mind when we walked into the new year. It is, I suspect, a place we will hear much more about in the coming weeks. It is a place which is hosting the Winter Olympics while, and at the same time, advertising bigotry and repression. Bit of a dodgy balance to maintain. At the moment the serial on Women's Hour on the BBC, available on Podcast near you, is the biographical story of the Russian journalist, Anna Politikovskaya who was murdered in 2006 and its a timely reminder that speaking out is a still a dangerous pastime in the world. There are some who say we should boycott the games. I have sympathy with this but I wonder if participation may not draw more attention. Its a fine balance, I am no diplomat and only time ever tells with these things. However, I suspect we will hear a lot of noise before the games come to a close. Let's hope there is a lot of positive protest and no terrorism, which is also a possibility. We live in a strange word. I may have a bit of a smug look on my face (above) and I have no reason not to have a little smugness in my wonderful life (for it truly is) but I worry about the pistol what could be termed as the Devil's Right Hand.

Icarus @ 59 # 54

Pictured aside, waiting for Hemingway and Picasso in a Barcelona bar, thinking about Walter Benjamin... in his essay, 'The Storyteller', Benjamin says, 'What differentiates the novel from all other forms of prose literature - the fairy tale, the legend, even the novella - is that it neither comes from the oral tradition nor goes into it.' Is this so? Some novels take on that mythical route into the oral, surely, Of Mice and Men ('...tell them about the rabbits George'); To Kill a Mockingbird ( 'Scout,' said Atticus, 'nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything - like snot-nose...') I could go on and on but I know what Benjamin means, especially when he says, 'The storyteller takes what he tells from experience - his own or that reported by others.' Although, while I can no longer agree that, 'The novelist has isolated himself...' since this is an opinion from another age, I really do agree that, 'In the midst of life's fullness, and through the representation of this fullness, the novel gives evidence of the potential perplexity of the living.' I have a new project coming up which combines myth with a new and novel narrative alongside additional essays in a three-way dialogue and this quotation should be displayed on the book proposal - and I suspect it will in time. But such is the thinking in an academic life - moving seamlessly from the municipal dump to the perplexity of living, sigh, sometimes I wish it weren't so. There is a famous saying written somewhere, I first saw it on a t-shirt, my mate Rocky circa 1972, it says 'fuck art, let's dance' - well that needs music, Los Lobos, I saw these rocking zydeco boys play at a wedding in Southern California and that's another story, and Paul Simon ripping them off is another story too, so many stories, but like I said, fuck art, let's dance, I love it when the accordion cuts in and what about the ukulele and the fairground at the end - desk dancing, car dancing, its all the same, its fairground music, get your shades on and dust down your two tone brothel creepers, I defy you to sit still:

Icarus @ 59 # 53

At the moment I am feeling like Winston Smith, 1984. He had a sore on his leg that wouldn't go and I seem to have the same - extra strength antibiotics and stuff like that to clear it up. Goodness, all I did was decorate the front room. But, now here is a but, Winston Smith is, indeed a character in1984 (a famous Orwell book) and the first ever full length animation film made in the UK was Animal Farm (another Orwell book), and my first foray into animation life and writing was due to the fact that I worked downstairs from a man who ate lunch in the same Italian restaurant just round from Drury Lane every single day. He took me into his studio and showed me around and a new life unfolded. You see, he and his wife, Joy Batchelor, directed the film Animal Farm. His name was (because he died some time back) John Halas, and he changed my entire world, the way I looked at the world and the way I looked at life, thus the world turns, does it turn, does it go round and round on a storytelling axis? At the time I was single and looking for a girl with faraway eyes; these guys wrote the song, don't they look young here. I love this tongue-in-cheek vid, haven't we all felt like this at some time in our life, I did then, not now, 'well you know what kinda eyes you got...'

Icarus @ 59 # 52

We take our moments of calm where we can get them, a walk into town, down by the pier, letting the breeze ruffle our hair and tease out our cobwebs. Yesterday I had two trips to the municipal dump and there is something very cathartic about that. I love the guys who run it because they are amazingly courteous and genuine about their work. As I struggled manfully up the stairs of the huge skip, he was cautious not to bale me out and instead shouted to the woman behind me, 'C'mon, mother, let me help you with that.' I guess the feminists might object but hey, it was all well intentioned and I enjoyed being there - irrational I know, but like I say, cathartic. At the moment I am reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I have only just started but her calm delivery pulls you in, only seven hundred pages to go and that is a good prospect. And I envy the author in a way, she writes a book every decade. Can you imagine, a project every ten years, what a sublime prospect that is as I think about the articles I have to finish, the new ones to start, the new book project (which I am very excited about) and yet there is so much more to do as education seems to evolve weekly these days. I am with Emily Dickinson at the moment (and I am still in a Barcelona state of mind) let the Gypsy Kings blow the cobwebs - serious desk dancing music and a reminder from E.D.:

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul! 

Icarus @ 59 # 51

Happy Sunday, its a luxury, sitting in your own kitchen with a handful of guitars, strumming your own tunes and playing with words that run around your own head, not owing anything to anyone except a slice of a mortgage that is much smaller than it used to be. It is Sunday and I feel entitled to sit with my bad leg up, since that is all that will heal it, and it means I can play guitar for as long as I like, which is a real luxury. I am in an empty house, the sun is streaming in the  kitchen window (where the guitars sit) and with nothing stronger than a cup of early grey (a bit like me) tea, I am pulling together a songbook of material that I have been gathering for a while - getting ready for recording. Yes, its February already and I feel fine about that. I have just written a chorus on the sunburst dobro, pictured above, second from the right and tuned into G for slide, its a good start - now if I had a boat (I love this song - Ke-mo sah-bee - Lyle Lovett has a good sense of observational irony):

Icarus @ 59 # 50

Post number fifty, fifty days into my sixtieth year, the old cliché, time flies comes more relevant as time flies… I have found that I don't spend much of my life wondering about roads I haven't taken because I have been incredibly lucky with the ones I have. That's not to say I haven't made mistakes, or have the odd regret but the anticipation of a new day and a new event always holds me firm. Indeed the unconventional roads I have taken sometimes have offered the best options, twists and turns. And so I was thinking about optimism yesterday and I re affirm this today. Robert Frost writes about a road not taken and his idea to take the one less traveled rings true for me, especially now that I am beginning a new writing cycle, have I mentioned Icarus Over America? But for now, after the Robert Frost poem we have Springsteen and a textual intervention on a Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath in the 'Ghost of Tom Joad' (with the marvellous Tommy Morello adding some guitar…

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.