Icarus @ 59 # 281

Being woken at four in the morning because your daughter wants to show you Chicago at night is worth wakening for, although I wasn't really sleeping at all. But drowsing and thinking and all the other sleepless things we do through the night. Its a spectacular city and I am so glad she shares my passion for it. She only stopped over by accident - there was a fire at O'Hare airport so the tennis team had to stop over and it was a toss up between posting this picture and her picture of The Bean - though I could do that tomorrow. I am reminded of the Carl Sandburg poem which represents a Chicago well before this picture was taken - I wonder what he would think now. I think I will go back one day becaue I bet it has changed since I was there. Last time I visted the Frank Lloyd Wright house on the University of Chicago campus, it had been used as a Faculty Office but having recognised its heritage it is being restored back to its origins - complete with furniture. Well worth seeing, though not sure I would want to live in it. Its all too square for me - who is used to Victorian imperfections. And this video is about the palce I came from - indeed, my sisters and my Dad live close by Salters Road:

Icarus @ 59 # 280

I only had an hour in the studio yesterday morning but it was extremely satisfying and immensely enjoyable too. I was dropping in a mandolin track to the vocal, guitar and harmonica tracks by simply feeling my way around the melody and it worked well. Isn't it great being able to work on a pleasurable task? And writing music is a bit like writing words, somehow the thoughts in your head filter down to your fingers and, like seeing the words on the screen, you hear the melody coming back at you, picking out things you had never heard before. And then when the melody settles you realise what works and what doesn't, just like writing words. Its a joy to behold when it starts to come together. Then later, with a cup of tea, when you mix it all down, you can hear all the complementary parts - I don't quite say, 'hey, the mandolin player is pulling out a nice counter-melody...' but its nice hearing it coming through, weaving around the song itself, which just started as a groping around for words and a tune. Now now its Monday again, where did the weekend go, how did it go so fast, I nearly didn't get anything done - nearly but not quite. I love duets - and this is one of my favourites:

Icarus @ 59 # 279

Tyres pumped up, frame and handlebars wiped down, headphones in (I know but it will mostly be in the huge Preston Park) and hard hat on, its the kind of autumn morning that says get on yer bike and  drive the cobwebs away. I love autumn, the colours, the leaves, the conkers - one landed on my head on Friday, just outside my office. I shouted 'oi' but both the tree and a student laughed. And last night I slept on and off, this is not connected to the conker falling on my head but to other things swimming around in there - so much to think about and ticking off the list just sees new things being added, more and more until the list itself begs for a priority list to be written as an appendix to the first. When I awoke for the third time I decided to read a book of Matsu Basho haikus which sits by my bed. I try reading at least one ever night to wind me down but I have come back to this one many times:
all night
autumn winds being heard 
behind the mountains
Its what keeps us awake, that wind behind the mountains, the things round the corner, over there, now there, and there, in another country, in another town, in another world, in another dimension of thought and ideas and preoccupations. They don't haunt my dreams - or if they do I wouldn't know. I often say I never dream, but maybe I do, I just don't remember them, or hardly ever anyway. I guess its because all night I am either sleeping or awake and listening to the wind blowing... so now, after I write this the wind will blow through my hair, my face, the plain and purl knit of my jumper as I hurtle through Fiveways (the area of Brighton I live in). It is the beginning of Autumn, the September spiders are out in force and soon September itself will be gone in the sigh of a heartbeat... one fine day, Un Bel Di' Vedremo and Maria Callas, a nice way to start - after a night of listening to the winds blowing behind the mountains:

Icarus @ 59 # 278

As I travel around the country, in towns and in the countryside, I am becoming aware of the 'replanting' of wild flowers that is going on. I first noticed them in Brighton, in the most unlikely places, like in the middle of Lewes Road, in Moulscombe, which is a pretty bleak place at times and then at the Olympic Park when up watching the Olympics. Now its a common site and hard to disapprove - we have wild gardens at the University (among other wild things). This is a Brighton hedgerow, on the Ditchling Road and the picture doesn't really do it justice but a year ago it was just a scrubby hedgerow with very little in the way of aesthetic joy presenting it to the world. And I am planning to plant such a patch at the bottom of my own garden - just as soon as I can identify all the flowers. Although knowing the gardening world, I can probably buy a ready made packet at the garden centre - part of me wants to do the research, the other, the extremely busy one wants to chuck them in and be done with it. Maybe I can plant them and then try to identify them as they appear, while I strum my guitar, listening to the bees - oh yes, my kind of gardening. Happy Saturday, Dan came back with Fresher's Flu - or Fresher's Fever (according to Abbi in the USA), he went to bed at 9.30 so it must be bad. SO I will stir up the chicken soup. I did ask, 'Why are you coming home this weekend, your mum is off to Nottingham to take part in the Nottingham half-marathon?" He replied, 'I came to see you, because you will be on your own all weekend...' och, said this auld Scotsman - and I like Ron Sexsmith:

Icarus @ 59 # 277

I like trains, actually I like traveling, but trains, especially fast trains, not the milk train that shuffles between Brighton and Winchester, which is a nightmare, but Winchester to Waterloo (on the 7.42); Brighton to Victoria and so on, love them. I snapped this picture just outside of Winchester Station the other day after I had returned from Waterloo, and there is something quintessentially English about it, a growing up Englishness, like watching the Railway Children - which is better as nostalgia than as a real film. Well I think so, anyway. What I like about travel is the unknowingness of it. I have always felt this - even as a sixteen-year-old when I decided to hitch-hike to various parts of Scotland, grabbing a bag, sticking out a thumb and going. 'Life is impoverished,' said Freud, 'it loses in interest, when the highest staple in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked... 'and the atmosphere of unknown terror and mystery,' emanates from nowhere but ourselves. - well that'll do for me. I am teaching Gothic this morning and I will be concentrating on that unknown terror and mystery - God is in the house - and our kittens are white, so we can see them in the night.

Icarus @ 59 # 276

And finally, I am back in Brighton but the routine is still up in the air, since I am only here today and back to Winchester tomorrow. And on that note I should mention the song for the cathedral I referenced a couple of days ago was written along with Hannah Curtain, who runs our amazing Foundation Music at the University, which is a really brilliant programme - and one I wish I had had access to a a young man. Writing with someone else is a real boost (and a real kick up the backside) because you can't just dally around and you have to get on with it - and she certainly made me do that. I miss my band in that respect, the task of writing new material for new sets and new gigs and so I have been setting myself these targets for years now, slapping my own self on the back of the head to get on with deadlines etc - even if they are only ticking my own boxes. Indeed this blog has taught me that - I was just telling this to my Masters students last night. I committed to writing it and therefore must do so. You can't just say, oh it can wait until tomorrow, I have jotted down some ideas, I will do it later. And although having something to say before breakfast isn't the easiest thing sometimes, forcing yourself to just switch on and do it is a challenge I recommend. Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism (1711) wrote this below and I could end today with that - because having been in Winchester then Hendon (Middx) then Winchester over the past three days I have much to catch up on - I like good movie music but I can't make up my mind on this one - sans the movie - but it has the amazing Yo-Yo Ma (what a great name he has):

True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance,
'Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense.

Icarus @ 59 # 275

On the seven-forty-two to

Waterloo, careering through

mist ghosted fields, and over

Andover, becalmed on a foggy sea.

And I am listening to Lou Reid singing Berlin, where I have been

But not for long, not forlorn;

On the seven-forty-two to 

Waterloo...

Icarus @ 59 # 274

A very late post but its been hectic, teaching until nine last night, on again today and lots of other bobs and bits (an old friend turned this around once and it stuck). But I got some really nice news today. A song I wrote is going to be part of the University Graduation ceremony - yay. I am so chuffed, its been scored into an acapela number with a full choir. Small pleasures, I know, but if its a success thousands of graduates could hear it over the coming years as they leave to move on with their lives. And since they graduate in Winchester Cathedral, well who would have thought, certainly not this coal miner's son from Nitten by the Bing. I got an email from Karine Polwart today - who still lives near Nitten, so maybe a tune from her:

"Freedom Come All Ye" performed by Karine Polwart in The Italian Chapel, Orkney August 2013. from Andy Crabb on Vimeo.

Icarus @ 59 # 273

'The nights are fair drawing in,' its a phrase my Mum used a lot (isn't it funny how all her old phrases resonate for given situations - I never really thought about them until I heard them as a ghosted voice, as a trace of her ongoing presence) and with a new academic year comes the inevitability of autumn. We have had it good, the press haven't been raving about an 'Indian Summer' but it surely has been - is this because we are becoming used to it being warmer? And even as I write this, our dependence on fossil fuels continues to gather steam rather than the hunt for the alternatives. The Scottish vote is off the Radio 4 news this morning and 'fracking' has raised its head again - as if it ever went away. I was thinking the other day that 'fracking' could be a new acceptable swear word. I could tell the Cameron government that they are a 'fraction' waste of space...' for example, though I suspect this would still get me into trouble (not that I give a frack). And now it sounds like I have woken grumpy, which is certainly not the case. Abbi won an 'invitation' tennis tournament in Oklahoma yesterday, Dan is happy as can be at his new Uni and weighing up his options after his 3rd year, even before his first class. But listening them both speak about where they want to be be and what good things they want to do with their life is great to hear. Anyway, enough of that, it is anew academic year and I have big plans of my own... this is a fine song (though not my favourite version - but I couldn't find the Joan Baez version - which you should seek out):

Icarus @ 59 # 272

I was listening to Nick Cave talking about Brighton skies, the other day. Not that his opinion should be any more remarkable than anyone else's but it was a kind of affirmation that I am not the only one taken in by them. I think its more living by the sea than Brighton. The horizons always seem longer and the blue bluer because the sea and the sky form a kind of marriage. And there is a symmetry too because the clouds and their reflections tend the image. And then every now and then we get the vapour trails of aeroplanes carrying people from here to there and back again, tin packets of people on the move, metal pockets of stories and lives and thoughts and ideas and dreams. Sometimes I think about being up there, flying to Oklahoma or to Portsmouth... for specific reunions, or simply flying to exotic places and planned liaisons - oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm.

Icarus @ 59 # 271

The huge sculpted insect on the side of the gable end in Gerrard Street (just round the corner from me) is another of those Brighton quirks. I have been meaning to take this picture for a while because I run past this (in my new Nike shoes) but I never have my phone or camera on my runs. So yesterday we visited a new gallery (and bought a new piece - as well as a bag of fruit and veg because its in the newly refurbished Market on London Road) and then walked up past this on the way home. I love such city landmarks, the unofficial art that bedecks the town (because the commissioned art is, well, commissioned and often a wee bit dull and predictable). This art carries traces of other conversations and industry and cheekiness and art for the sake of it. This would never have been a high price commission or anything. I am no' sure about the end of the tail though, but hey ho, aesthetic choices. I don't know who made it - I could probably find out easy enough - I could knock on their door for a start. But I just like the fact that one day, during the Open House weeks it just appeared. But it also reminds me - the UK has been politics, politics, politics all year; does anyone except the radio and TV who feed and feed on such dialogues really give a toss that Alex Salmond has decided to step down? As the manager of the cup finalist with a runner's up medal, I would feel the same. I am not ignoring the importance of politics but the obsession and coverage which art doesn't get. So here goes, my new manifesto: "WORK is what we do; ART is who we are!" Happy Saturday - if you get a chance soon, check out 20000 Days on Earth - my old mate Nick Cave's bio pic (remember we met with out trousers down - while trying on new jeans - many posts ago).

Icarus @ 59 # 270

San Francisco seems like a distant memory now but stumbling across this picture doesn't bring out nostalgia (which is always a return to a place that doesn't exist), what it brings out is a reminder of how cultures live together, side by side. And even though this picture looks like two sides of the same road it isn't really, its a high melting pot of a city that I absolutely adored. Like my home city of Edinburgh and my adopted city Brighton. But I have seen it elsewhere too, New York, London, Paris, Sydney, Brisbane, Madrid, Barcelona, for I have travelled widely. And I will travel more but as I think about that I am also thinking of a line written by Bob Dylan, 'I pity the poor immigrant, who wishes he'd stayed at home.' Our intolerance of others and otherness, and theirs of us, is probably the biggest blight on the human race. The things done in the face of racial, religious, sexual and any other intolerance is surely a great waste of humanity. Its a pity there isn't a cure except common sense, which doesn't seem to be shared by everyone. Still, its easy to despair and I don't, what has to continue is those of us who posses tolerance have to keep spreading the message and trying to overturn the bigotry. If I had a message to my sitting Prime Minister it would be this - ignore our quiet voices at your peril, if Scotland taught us anything last night, it is that its time to really start paying attention to the many and the few, not just your chosen - here's tae us, wha's like us - well that's my ten minutes worth after fifty years of living it.

Icarus @ 59 # 269

5 a.m. is a quiet time and dawn is different from dusk in many ways. It smells different, feels different and if, like me these days, you are meeting the dawn after being asleep through the night - as opposed to going home which was once the case - you would expect it to bring anticipation of the day to come. It does a little, I guess but for me its a chance to get the notebook out and unscramble some of the things that kept me awake (not for long) the night before. I don’t sleep long, but little worries me between dropping off and waking up. But here is what I dropped off thinking last night. The Japanese word, Datsozoku means to experiment and to create alternatives to daily processes and routine. It sounds a nice idea but I find myself wondering what it would be like to have a routine. Its not something I have ever been able to manage. Oh, its ok for a few days, but then it goes awry. In fact the only constant is the first cup of Early Grey in the morning - cheers by the way. After that the day twists and turns and in the process I have to try and fit in what to cook for every evening meal, which routinely ends the day. Honestly? I don’t usually know until about seven in the evening and the only constant is I know I have enough food in the house. But where Datsozoku works is in the working process, where I am making changes to my own practice and that has been fun to pursue. Writing a song lyric while watching a 10k run unfold, while this beach (pictured) opened up before me was an interesting one. And a real pleasure too, which is why this Sunday coming I will be down there on my bike just taking in the dawn - and there we go, a full circle, at 5 a.m. in the morning. And today is a day for a Scottish song, you know why - Dignity:

Icarus @ 59 # 268

The front of the book, the back of the book, the computer and writing. I wrote only recently that I used to write creative stuff at the front of my notebook and work and business at the back. Then I found I was writing mostly at the back to transfer the completed, creative work to the front, until I stopped writing at the front altogether. Wondering out loud how this change took place, K.K. advised me that I was putting off finishing things so writing from the back to the front was a kind of displacement. I have a feeling she may be right because the stuff that does get completed ends up here (see picture) on the computer, typed up. And I find that typing up scraps and notes and ideas forces me to confront what I am doing so I can at least get a complete draft of pieces I am thinking about. So the new part of my writing discipline is not to sit with notebook and pencil but to take the notebook and pencil to the computer to type. Sounds very simple, I know, but blow me down, it works and I have already completed two pieces I had lying around in scraps and pencil drafts, one of which is called, Help Me Carry This Load (to the other side of the road) - a song I began in Majorca, fully worked out with tune, bridge, middle eight and chorus but no complete lyric, well now... I now go back to  Iche-go-Iche-e which I explored last week; (9) Express usefulness through simplicity. And the idea that, 'Often we complicate the simple to impress and we fail to simplify the complex out of fear that others may know what we know.' I love this piece of music, I stumbled upon it when I bought a CD of Trumpet Concertos in a charity shop (just out of curiosity):

Icarus @ 59 # 267

I live in a world of alternative language and its odd to have to write one way and read in another (sometimes). For example, yesterday I read that, 'Adorno was right to point to the epistemological aporia of realist aesthetic theory...' I mean epistemological is just a short way (huh) of talking about 'a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge' and 'aporia' is just a 'logical or even radical contradiction' I guess, or guess not, 'To be, or no to be: that is the question.' being the most famous. Now I confess its odd thinking about this at this time of the morning. This blog is a ten minute window at the start of every day of my sixtieth year so why would such a thing be a preoccupation over the first cup of early grey of the day? Well, I confess I wake with a busy heid (as we Scots say - and are we in the news these days). But I have been thinking that the Yes/No debate is an epistemological aporia, both logical and radical contradictions at the edge of so many thoughts and ideas. Thus far I haven't commented because I don't have a vote and I have remained Janus-faced, weighing up the yes/no, the aye/nut/maybe, a Socialist with a big S, an internationalist with a big I and a romantic with a wee 'r' - I have felt a stranger for all of my adult life, even in Portobello which was the most exotic place in the world when I was a teenager... I made up my mind ages ago... this came from the same Springsteen gig I mentioned yesterday, I guess we are all dancing in the dark:

Icarus @ 59 # 266

Well we packed his bass and his guitar, his notebooks and pens, his charity shop shirts and many pairs of black jeans, a pot and a wok, two plates (in case I break one), a two pint cup and forks and knives foraged from our kitchen and of course 'lappie' which is his window to the world, even his football boots. Did we forget anything? I found his brush in the bag we brought home. I txt him, any excuse, the reply, 'its only a brush...' did I expect him to buy a new one? 'I'll get it next time I'm home...' and there is was, 'next time I'm home...' Florence Rd is still his home - well its only been a day (and what a day - and he has some great housemates) but that's a house (University Halls actually - 6 of them share his kitchen space - though there are 12 in the corridor - could be some party) and here is home, here is home. Its hard to know how to feel - very proud of course but a bit of a wrench at the same time. Its why we bring them up, to let them move on, to help them to move on, to bring more good people into the world where they can do good things. Its the right thing to do - but I love this picture of Dan, still clinging to the kite strings on a deserted beach in Wales. He's a great traveling companion. Neruda wrote:

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long 
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station 
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. 
Last night there was one of those tribute shows - it was Springsteen's turn - and actually it was quite superb. I have always like this post 9/11 song, but the way Zac Brown and Mavis Staples do this with the Levite choir, ooh, sent goosebumps down this old spine - let it roll until the choir kick in. Dan didn't watch it - he was out at a party (of course). By the way, I have no idea how long this clip will stay up - not long would be my guess:

Icarus @ 59 # 265

And he's off! The boy in Barcelona has finally fled the roost and is off on the latest big adventure of his life. He is going to have such a great time but that doesn't mean he isn't going to be missed - oh he will be. But look how's he's grown. Taller than me, twice as handsome and smart with it. He'll do just fine. His football career started when we watched his first world cup (pictured still in his PJs) and yesterday he played right back in the Brighton, Hove and Worthing First Division (we won 4-1 and he played well). But deep down, really deep down, I am so glad he is going to Uni, its the start of a new phase for us all. I might add to this post later - because we have to load the car - should have hired a two ton truck for all the stuff he's taking... I have been reading Matsu Basho again and this captures it. The meaning is not literal for the situation but the meaning lingers:

Misty rain;
Today is a happy day,
Although Mt. Fuji is unseen.

We will listen to this in the car on the way down, we played it all the time on holiday, maybe get a wee car dance on the go (if we can find a space amongst all his stuff :-) The good news? He wants to make our trip to Barcelona, art galleries and the Camp Nou an annual trip - football and art, lovely boy thinking about his old Dad like that.

Icarus @ 59 # 264

Autumn is with us and while balmy days at the back door with hat and guitar are still possible a big jumper is becoming a necessary part of the dressage. But that's ok, I can cope with that. And its round about this time of the year where I begin to put in place the plans I made over the summer. The academic year starts soon and with it a different kind of working week and thinking time. You get used to thinking seasonally - odd as it may sound. And you get used to writing different things. Indeed, yesterday I wrote a prose poem, which was really just a collection of images that are beginning to come together in a much longer piece that contains pictures and images of myth and suchlike. But this weekend is Dan's last as a permanent residence of Florence Rd. Now it will be a place he comes back to but this is the start of his departing and his moving on is about to begin. Abbi returns from America in eighteen months time and she has plans of her own - though they could change, couldn't they. But she has already said she is not coming home and will be moving on. Dan will be the same in time, he already dances to his own tunes and he won't want to return to my soundtrack. Never mind, like his sister he seems to be really happy and that's all we can ask. I have been listening to this, I like the way it sways and the singer picks out the grace notes - I also like the way the film has been clipped to it, enjoy:

Icarus @ 59 # 263

In a poem called 'How Poetry Came to Me', Gary Snyder wrote,

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

I have always liked that description. Last night I was fiddling with a tune on my guitar. I wrote it a couple of years ago and that is just how it felt. Sitting at the edge of the light, taking in the grace notes, tracing the lines where the melody is strongest for the lyric to sit. Its hard to describe how it works and indeed many songwriters do it much better than me. I guess a couple of masters are Springsteen and Lennon, Bowie is another, I challenge anyone to try singing along to something like 'Life on Mars', it sounds simple but actually there is a lot more going on there than you think - and that's just to name three contemporary writers, the list is huge and endless. A couple of my own favourites are Karine Polwart (who lives near my Dad) and Lori McKenna (and not just because my mum was a McKenna. I recently wrote an article on writing a particular song, to try and analyse what was going on and I plan to do much more recording when Dan goes off to University this weekend (hoooo - I shall miss him, so) but I have spent my spare time in the summer writing or polishing tunes and gathering scraps of lyrics in readiness. In isolation they don't mean anything, like, 'The boy from Barcelona plays a broken-heart-stringed mandolin,' but I am hoping that eventually they will come together as a narrative. And now the choice of song this morning is a huge task, how to demonstrate this - I guess every lyric writer should take this advice:

Icarus @ 59 # 262

I was wrong, it was a perigee moon, I confess not to being a lunar love good so I didn't know such an occurrence could happen twice or even three times in a year. But there we go. Nevertheless, a glorious moon over the sea could still outshine the Brighton Eye. But this is just a quick hello and cheerio - am driving the 80 miles to Winchester and must be off. But before I go, another haiku:

Autumn full moon,  
the tides slosh and foam  

coming in

But oh, I thought it would be fine... but I struggled to post this song. We all used to sing this with my dad for my mum when we were kids. I didn't think it would hit me so... oh...

Icarus @ 59 # 261

10. Unleash your power to spring back

Holy moly, well now 10. would be that wouldn't it. Having just bought my new Nike runners (just like these) light as a feather, triple bouncy and twice as cool, the lesson is to spring back. Well I guess I better had do so. I have already made a start, working on inside and outside fitness, and I am optimistic, albeit a little humbly in what I expect to achieve, but that is okay. If I can aspire to some of the 1-10 竹 lessons I have posted this week then at least I am trying. Last night we had another exceptional moon. Not quite a perigee but pretty spectacular if you could catch it through the clouds - and actually this reminded me of a haiku I first read a very long time ago:

From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders.
                          Bashō 

I have never written a haiku, never tried, never thought about it, maybe I should but its not as easy as it looks. Even simply speaking, its a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, mostly written in a 5/7/5 syllable count and often focusing on images. Yet, the simplicity often defies the potential and intensity of the images being presented. But moving on, yesterday I was sent something quite remarkable by my neighbor AB. If you have the time, give this a blast, an expression of usefulness through simplicity in motion, Words of Wonder, don't just sit there, Get Up Stand Up:

Icarus @ 59 # 260

(9) Express usefulness through simplicity. 

Abbi in Tuscany - so young and so wise - oussa...ah...

Often we complicate the simple to impress and we fail to simplify the complex out of fear that others may know what we know. Yesterday I was listening to a debate on the results of a Staff Survey conducted at the University. It wasn't all good news and of course the Senior Management Team didn't come out well. They never do in these things (mostly because people like a grumble - actually, a lot of good things are happening - though there needs to be balance) but while some very interesting things were being said I found I couldn't listen to the petty that seems to really annoy people. Of course I can understand them, but over the years  I have tried to just say, 'oussa..ah...' in a very soft voice, which my daughter swears by, and then moving on. It works. A colleague and I were whispering through the debate that actually, we never get stressed about very much. He has been through such a lot that, in his own words, he is tefal, nothing sticks to him. I have watched him, and supported where I could, while he negotiated that turmoil and I too am tefal. Every now and then we get a reminder that life is too short and I am more useful to the people around me by dealing with the situations I am able to, by keeping my usefulness simple. So, I can mow your lawn, dig up your tatties, wash your windows (I am good at them) to help you with some tricky pages of your thesis or your book. Nothing fancy, mind, just a line at a time, a suggestion here or there, usefulness through simplicity. As everyone in my house knows, this is my real karaoke song (strictly in the car) - are we human or are we [dad] dancer (I will tell you once I have worked it out):

Icarus @ 59 # 259

8. Commit yourself to growth and renewal 

Kaizen or continuous improvement is more steady and incremental, where big leaps and bounds are not necessary. Yet I confess, looking back I can see I have made continuous growth through my life but its peppered with peaks and troughs. Is it avoidable? I don't really think so because its mostly in the mind. We spend lots of time growing and developing and creating, being creative without a seeming end in sight but when it comes to fruition, pop, the mountain top feels all the more special. So reaching the summit, getting to the end, singing the chorus of a new song for the first time, feels like a huge leap, a bound into the creation of something new, it is actually the incremental end to creative concentration over a period of time. In football parlance, its the concentrated effort of scoring a goal - it only takes one to win the game but the ninety-minutes of combined concentration is no less important. Surely, then the commitment to growth and renewal is a daily event. Today I am off to Winchester to stay in the University for an 'away day' - you couldn't make it up, I have a literary PhD and I accept this oxymoron every year without protest - it must be the bad food and even worse the coffee (Universities buy bad coffee in bulk) - so I will be driving this morning, I have got a feeling I belong, forty years ago I knew how she felt:

Icarus @ 59 # 258

7. Smile, laugh and play

Down on the beach at 7.30 on a Sunday morning is a fine place to be, taking in the air, letting the wind blow through your quiff and what is left of your hair, avoiding the sign that says, 'keep off the groynes,' which is a bit of an oxymoron in Brighton. But this is number seven of the Simple Life Versions from the Bamboo. The Kanji (Chinese character) for smile or laugh is (Chinese character) 笑. At the top of this character are two small symbols for 竹 or take . It is said that bamboo has a strong association with laughter, perhaps because of the sound bamboo leaves make when they sway in the breeze. Its a bit like a forest laughing, and that is how I felt this morning, taking in the breeze crossing the Channel from France while watching a 10K run for charity. Did I feel lazy not running it, not in the slightest, in fact I wrote the lyrics to a song I have been ruminating, as I walked along the side of the course waiting for them to return. Aye its good to be able to 'smile, laugh and play' - come up and see me sometime - if I did karaoke (which I don't) this might be my song:

Icarus @ 59 # 257

6. Find wisdom in emptiness 

In order to empty ourselves of prejudices and fear we must empty our minds; in order to learn we have to empty ourselves of our preconceived notions. The hollow insides of the bamboo reminds us that we are often too full of ourselves and our own conclusions; we have no space for anything else. Well I guess that's all very well and true but can we really do that much about it. We grow up with pre-conceived notions which are culturally conditioned. In order to fit it into our surroundings, which is a natural human reaction, we absorb the ways of the community until we are old enough to challenge them. And I guess that is the key, until we are old enough to challenge them. I was pretty sickened this week by a civilised country like Australia - though I do not single it out because it is happening no far from me too. Immigration is a problem we are told, well yes, but corralling them like horses in order to break them can't be an answer to the problem. So today, I dedicated this post to Hamid Kehazaei, a 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker who had been detained on Manus Island (in a detention centre set up by the Australian government - not much better than Robben Island really). He recently suffered a cut to his foot. It's reported that Hamid sought medical attention for days, and was denied, resulting in acute septicaemia. By the time he was transferred to a Brisbane hospital he was brain dead. God, he was just a boy looking for a better life, which even the desert of Australia could have provided.The petition to close down the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres is a collaboration between GetUp, the Refugee Action Coalition, Doctors for Refugees, ChilOut, the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Unions for Refugees, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, and numerous groups and individuals fighting for compassionate and humane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, please email: petition@getup.org.au To sign as an individual - I have. But this is happening on your own doorstep too - empty your mind  of fear, these are people with real feelings, passion and love to offer a world in which they are unhappy. The picture is of Nelson Mandela's old cell - goodness, what must he have thought about this - and believe me, this picture does not do the cell justice, its smaller than it looks, that mat is six foot long and was Mr Mandella's bed and the cell could only take two of them side-by-side. When I want to clear my mind I often listen to this - and watch the film , its great:

Icarus @ 59 # 256

5. Be always ready

I took this picture in Wales when I was there last week, I just liked the contours of the sand - is that the right word, contours? No probably not but you know what I mean, the way it sorts itself into a pattern like this. And I guess the lesson on this is be ever ready with your camera - though since we all have cameras on our phones these days the art of photography, not just the 'snapping' but the 'art' is becoming a difficult one to negotiate. I was give a camera by the University, a Nikon Coolpix, as a long service award, well actually I awarded it to myself with the small cash fund of £100 they gave me. I wanted a small camera I could slip in my pocket in readiness and I have already started using it for a new (hopefully) exhibition. Its the Season 2014-15. Football in the park fascinates me, the guys do it for free and play and change in terrible conditions so the narrative will be them and their facilities throughout the season - but with an insider's view since I also coach the team. A bit like a 'Local Observation' of life through the season - we'll see but I already have some to start it off. Happy Friday, always one of my favourite days of the week - take it away BB - the boy done good, the girl done better and tomorrow's another day.

Icarus @ 59 # 255

4. Slow down your busy mind

I am taking time out to play this at the moment. Different days demand different guitars. I can't explain it, that's just the way it is. Its not even a case of reaching out for the closest one, its a question of tone, sound, harmonics, playing style. I mean I would never use my bottleneck on this guitar and I would on others. But its also the way I slow down my busy mind, pulling at tunes, hearing the harmonics, tracing the grace notes that form the tunes and patterns that are hiding in the morass that is the inside of my head (sometimes). And I am working on a couple of different things, which is also the problem. Settling down to one thing at a time is infinitely more satisfying but all the time the brain is going busy, busy, busy and the need to slow it down takes conscious effort. Mind you I will also say, for all those typists out there, RSI is a huge problem - and I know, in 2012 I wrote two books in 5 months, 130,000 words, and my fingers were well gnarled by the end - it is guitars that help me re-address the balance. Its still all fingers but the action and grip and shape is different, you use different muscles and all in all, while its not a cure for RSI, playing a guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, ukelele, piano, helps to hold it at bay - just saying. So ease those fingers while you slow down your busy mind. Although, of course, you could always fly a kite. At the moment this is my favourite picture of Dan and we like this music in the car - he goes to University next week and he might find a lesson in the lyric - or not - he'll have fun finding out:

Icarus @ 59 # 254

3. Be strongly rooted yet flexible

Football is a game of movement, pass and move, pass and move, but movement and flexibility depends on stability, its a bit of a cliche to say that football is a metaphor for life but it is in many ways - well for me anyway. Teamwork and combined effort are embedded in the ethos but the need to be flexible, to be able to act and react to change is uppermost. We live in a mobile world where stability is hard to maintain. I live hundreds of miles from where I grew up, others I know its thousands of miles, my own daughter Abbi, and keeping a rootedness is geographically difficult. Indeed, if the Scottish vote goes the yay way I might even cease to be Scottish - which would be odd. And then again, not so odd. I live in Brighton, I work in Winchester, we root ourselves into our new communities, cast our nets to become part of that community, to contribute to that community - with a huge degree of flexibility - otherwise we just become shadows on the cobblestones, like this picture of Dan and I leaving our trace in Barcelona, taking from the community, without actually giving back except as tourists - so the thought for today is be strongly rooted yet flexible:

Icarus @ 59 # 253

2. Bend but don't break

Sway with the breeze don't fight against it, the gentle movement may look like compliance but it is really all about a harmonious existence. Soon the wind will blow itself out, changes will come to be seen as good or bad and a bend-but-don’t-break or go-with-the-natural-flow is a way of negotiating the journey ahead. This is a picture of my very busy desk and there is much work to be negotiated, but the notebook to the left of the keyboard contains a list of things to be done. It's the only way, tick it off and move on, sway with the breeze as you go. And now I slept late (a rare treat to get up after seven) so I am already swaying. I took one of my four little sisters to see this man singing this song, I wonder if she still has his autograph?

Icarus @ 59 # 252

1. Remember: what looks weak is strong

I fell of a ladder doing this about eight months ago and I am still getting over the problem it created. The tear in my leg has repaired - and that is the main thing, and though it took six months it is remarkable to see the body taking care of itself (with a little help from Manuka Honey (honestly - medically administered) and compression bandaging, no drugs just natural healing in time. Now I have the equivalent of a shark bite scar. Of course, getting the damaged muscle tissue and the elasticity in the new skin back will take more time but it is a minor problem. Which brings me to the first of my simple life lessons from bamboo: You do not have to be big and imposing to be strong. There is strength in the light, in openness and transparency. There is strength in kindness, compassion and cooperation. There is strength in the bearable light of being (apologies to Kundera). You may bend in the storm, you may bend in the forces pressing you down, but you won't break and soon you will be reaching out for the light in openness and transparency (nice symmetry and that is my thought for today) - its a long time from May to September: