Icarus @ 59 # 312

Its another 5am start but yesterday was a, 'what to do in an empty house day...' Goodness but was it quiet, but having been to Heathrow and back by 9am the whole day opened up with possibilities. I confess, as the early morning mist cleared and opened up a glorious autumnal morning, the pull to the back door was too great to resist. A wee bit slide guitar while I waited for the extremely slow toaster to give up the GF bread to be eaten with a boiled egg. It was just the ticket on a working morning, with much to be done. But later in the day I managed a little trip to the open market for fruit and a secondhand copy of the Works of Stevie Smith, which was a nice find. I love second hand book stalls, though I really like new books, but while I was also down there I also managed to buy a couple of pieces of artwork that I am not quite sure what to do with yet. Although I did also see an Icarus man, which was too expensive for what it was but I will post a picture soon. There is more to this story and the day but no time now - rushing on. Happy Friday - I am playing this to cheer myself up on a cold and dark morning:

Icarus @ 59 # 311

Caught in the kitchen, thinking about driving Diane to Heathrow in ten minutes time. She is flying to New York to take part on the NY Marathon. New York is my favourite city of all time, I adore the atmosphere, the buzz and the energy of it, and I will go back as soon as I can find time, because that is the only consideration. But this is that moment Mama Cass sang about, the darkest hour just before dawn. Its coal black and cold out there, bring it on, everyone should experience the world at this time of the morning. It is a quick cup of early grey, a splash of the face and then wooosh... they are off.

Icarus @ 59 # 310

Don't like the weather, wait five minutes it will change. Winchester is spectacular in the sun and gothic in the fog. Its in a valley that lies below sea level, and sometimes a mist hangs over the fields and the town like a Dickensian metaphor. Yesterday was a sunny day, fantastically creative, buzzing with ideas and thoughts and it knocks on because as I relaxed in the kitchen back in Brighton, last night, I sketched out a country-esque song I have been writing, with a chorus line, 'broken heart-stringed mandolins'. It was fun to bash through while sipping a gluten free, alcohol free beer - rock and roll huh, I was enjoying myself so much I had two! This morning I have been thinking about the list I have to work through before squeezing in lunch with my boy and an appt this afternoon. I confess tidying my study is top of that list, I can't work in mess - books neatly piled up, stacked in corners etc is fine, but stuff scattered around, oh no, that can never do. Happy wednesday, the middle of the week, the day after Tuesday, not yet Thursday, the corner not yet turned... Yesterday I was gifted the new Yusef Cat Stevens album, some surprising good material on it (for a change) and this is the title track. Haven't fully made up my mind but I post this for my sister Debbie, the Usher Hall, circa 1971.

Icarus @ 59 # 309

Winchester rooftops in the sunshine on a  creative morning when a new project was being laid out on a table. I love mornings like this and a new view to photograph only added to the new ideas that were being bounced back and forth over notebooks and tea as a story outline and storyboard was beginning to take shape. But the day is pepper sprayed with a really bad vibe (which is the subject of the new project I am working on). I am ashamed to say I heard this on the news late last night, 'Britain will not support any future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, claiming they simply encourage more people to attempt the dangerous sea crossing, Foreign Office ministers have quietly announced.' Quietly announced, quietly announced, no fracking wonder because its a fracking disgrace of a Tory government thing to do and the think they can sneak around like wee mice in the night (rats more like) - and its not rescue operations that encourage more to attempt crossing, its desperation you fracking fools. But I loathe the whole language of it too, like this from The Guardina (sic), do you mind, 'The British refusal comes as the official Italian sea and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, is due to end this week after contributing over the past 12 months to the rescue of an estimated 150,000 people since the Lampedusa tragedies in which 500 migrants died in October 2013. 500 'migrants', its as if the word will suffice, well it fracking won't. That shocking disaster saw 500 men, women and children die. People with lives and loves and feelings and dreams of a better life. Fahad Abdul Kariem, a survivor said, 'I was wedged into the hold, legs apart so that another migrant could sit in front of him. The next, the Mediterranean swell was rolling the vessel, the motion aggravated by the scores of African and Indian migrants clinging to the roof canopy. And everyone was in the water. I was under the boat when my hand caught a lifebuoy that I clung to as the last resort... I saw bodies floating on the sea. Some were wearing lifejackets. One was a child. But I could not see where my friend Ayman was.' They weren't there because of newsreels showing rescues, they were there because they were desperate for a better life, desperate for a better life, desperate for a better life, desperate for a better life,  desperate for a better life, desperate for a better life, looking for a better life, searching for a better life, putting themselves at enormous risk, for a better life - who can bear to think about it? I read what is being done in my name by my fracking excuse for a government, with their privileges and perks and ministry cars and I would weep if I wasn't so fracking angry. I have been saving this song for myself but its time, ever single person has a sweet little mystery, let's not call them crap words like 'migrants' as we remember that - ooh sah, I need to calm down:

Icarus @ 59 # 308

Early light not darkness; seagulls squawking, before body and clock time have adjusted to each other; a calm autumn morning breaking early and a watery sun is at least making an effort - the change of clock always brings change with it and its as if the season knows changes have been made - though how can it, a season cannot think. But it would be a mistake not to register the changes as we see them appear. Neruda wrote, 'I remember you as you were in the last autumn/ You were the grey beret and the still heart.' and I like how he takes these images together, the grey beret and the still heart, the physical and the emotional. But this time of year, particularly right now seems to do that. Its the change and changes that bring the thoughts forward and into place. I had a terrible weekend, laid up and thoughtless (though I did get my marking done) but to paraphrase the song I wrote for graduation, I am going to 'walk into the light.' We give way to summer time and say hello to winter, it becomes official, daylight saving for mornings and early dark evenings. I will wear a grey beret and still my heart to listen for the change of the clock.

Icarus @ 59 # 307

I am sitting at the kitchen table, having taken the extra hour lazily by drinking tea and reading The Observer. I could be inclined to cancel the weekly paper and just read this one once a week, its such a treat. And I am slowly getting back on my feet, working yesterday was extremely hard, because concentration is difficult but I need to finish marking some Masters work. All will be fine, and it will be if I tell myself it will. But at some time today I hoping I can wheel my bike out, even for just a 'wee hurl' around the park. It'll depend on the weather, because its looking grim out there. And so the Sunday when the clocks turned back has slipped into normal mode and we roll with it. Time is an odd thing, don't you think. This week I have become a Great Uncle for the tenth time - lordy, this comes from having lots of siblings, especially four 'granny' sisters who married young and have grown up children of their own, and of course there are more anticipated, which is just fine. I might read Rosemary Tonks today but for now I am listening to this - an uplifting start to the day, well it is a Sunday, oh yay:

Icarus @ 59 # 306

A cross between a grin and grimace, I hate being immobile and I am not very good at sitting still when I can't work, but since I slept from ten last night until eight this morning my body must be telling me something - and to be honest this room is a cool space to be confined in. What I have been able to do is read and I spent yesterday afternoon with a copy of Neruda and pencil, which is a luxury I am going to repeat more often. Indeed I made a resolve to take such a book on holiday every year. The past twenty-four hours have given me time to reflect and slow down a little which I really needed to do - ah well. And today I will get my notebook out to start scribbling again, which I am very much looking forward to. And today I might play guitar too - yesterday was one of those rare days when I didn't even pick it up - though the one I want to re-string is in the attic studio and I am not sure how I will get up there, maybe not yet is the answer, we'll see. But happy Saturday, its wet down here in Brighton, autumn leaves lie sodden on the ground. Diane is off for a thirteen mile stroll (not twenty miles this week) in her final training for the New York marathon so I will work this morning and strum this afternoon. Yesterday I posted Glenn Close reading 'I like for you to be still' - which is the soundtrack from the movie Il Postino, I posted that version because I liked the football and poetry juxtaposition but some of you might like to hear it all (especially Debs) because yesterday's version cuts off. So here it is - a great away to start the weekend.

Icarus @ 59 # 305

I feel like this today - hapless and hanging precariously on the edge. I missed work for the first time in over twenty years, I have had a joint problem all week that flared up in the night and meant I couldn't walk (and actually couldn't sleep - which I have spent most of the day doing). Anti-inflammatory drugs prescribed and taken and I should be on my feet in a couple of days - but jeez, real pain is not good for the soul. And now I fear even my walking pace football days are over, such a shock to realise that has to be the case, but there it goes. And so, tomorrow I will be sitting at home and working on the stuff that should have been done today - that's just the way it is and will have to be. Now ok, this is an advert but I like to think of it as a Pablo Neruda poem with a football film. Forgive me the ending, this is truly lovely, " I like for you to be still' - I have included the words below the film if you want to read as Glenn Close reads one of my favourite poems of all time:

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true

Icarus @ 59 # 304

Yesterday a friend I grew up with in Edinburgh informed me they were new grandparents and indeed a number of other friends are too; all four of my younger sisters are grandparents (Angie being the newest, with her txt saying Yaz's son popped out at 'only' 10.65 lbs) I confess her use of the word 'only' might be in jest although he is .05 lb lighter than I was, blimey what a prospect. Its inevitable, I guess, it is just a milestone in the long pier of life we are walking long, especially if we have children of our own who will inevitably have their own children, in time. I hope I won't have to face that for a while, my own still being in education. But while nothing prepares us for it, nothing will stop it and we will cope just as easily (I suspect). Actually, I don't even think it is coping but adjusting and we have to do a great deal of that throughout our lives. Change is the most consistent thing in my life, especially my working life - although some of the personal changes have been quite big this year, not all recorded here - but I can honestly say if I wrote this 365 day blog next year (I won't) the comparisons would reveal the changes, and they would be quite marked. So yesterday I got a new nephew,  baby and mother well, lang mae their lums reek!

Icarus @ 59 # 303

Alas, I fear not only has summer gone but Autumn is falling too, the clocks go back this coming Sunday and the official signs of winter are upon is - it was blooming' freezing last night. But all it means for the guitar players is we wrap up more. The garden bench at the back door is a little sun trap and I can sit here soaking it up, whatever the strength. And I am writing a number of songs right now - well writing is the wrong word. I am tidying up songs that have existed for a wee while, just tidying up the lyrics which is always the unfinished job. A bit like gardening really, we do the planting and the sowing and the cutting of the lawn etc but the job I hate is the tidying up, clearing the leaves from the patio and so this is the same job. I can hear the song in my head and sometimes that's enough because I am the only person who hears them. Until now, that is, the redoubtable Hannah C. has me preparing for a performance in January and I have managed to rope in my friend Stevie, who also plays guitar, dobro and mandolin, so we have no excuse but to prepare a short set - and it will be fun. We could be Geriatric and the Pacemakers... well not quite as old as the Rolling Stones:

Icarus @ 59 # 302

I am thinking about going back to see this beauty on the Scottish skyline. Its been a wee while since I was in Edinburgh - so much to do and so little time in which to do it - nevertheless a couple of days away is required so I can catch up with my dad. But its more than that, I stayed away from Scotland during the separation debate, not because I asn't interested but because I had no part in it and all I could do was observe. But now I want to breathe the air, take in the sky, hear the sounds of my own youth. Its a romantic idea, I know that, a place is a place, we might say, but I just have a 'wee nory' (as my mother used to say - or is it norie, where is your Scottish dictionary when you need it?). It means a 'wee fancy' or 'a wee notion'. Anyway I guess we all get them from time to time, a yearning to be somewhere else but not necessarily somewhere different, a return to the same. But what is the same? When Socrates was asked where he came from he didn't reply 'From Athens,' but from 'The World,' and I guess that's about right, but he must have yearned to go back home at some point. It was just a nory I had.

                

Icarus @ 59 # 301

Church cloisters, cold corners, autumnal winds blowing round nooks and crannies, red, yellow, green and gold leaves scatter on the breeze, hither and thither, hanging on to life; the change of weather, soon to be a change of time, clocks go back, we go forward, time never stands still, tic tok, tic tok, the comfort clock, Sunday chimes evensong, pigeons flee the belfries  and close by in church cloisters, in the cold corners that catch the autumn wind, a chatter of murmuring starlings flash mob by and by and by and by, without ever telling anyone why; and overheard, the music is Webern's Langsamer Satz which is usually played as a string quartet - perfect for dusk or even dawn.

Icarus @ 59 # 300

Waking up to this on a Sunday morning is normal in our household because of the time difference: Melrose, Advances to Quarterfinals October 18, 2014 STILLWATER, Okla. -- Senior Abbi Melrose turned a furious comeback into a quarterfinal berth at the USTA/ITA Central Regional Championships in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday. The Brighton, England native bounced back from a uncharacteristic first set loss to defeat Gabriela Porubin 0-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2). Melrose, the No. 13 overall seed, now boasts a total fall singles record of 9-2. She won all four of matches en route to winning the Sooner Draw at the OU Fall Invite last month. “Abbi has become one of the best competitors in our region and I am not one bit surprised by her phenomenal effort to pull that match out,” said head coach David Mullins. “She just seems to want it a little more than her opponents.” Oh yay, its a nice way to wake up - at, oh, 5.30am on a Sunday, am I mad, I ask myself. What I really like is Abbi's tennis face,  she is a very beautiful young lady but always looks goofy in tennis pictures (and check out the Spock left hand) - here she is in her new OU tennis gear, which she is very lucky to get provided for her, including six of those $300 rackets. What a great way to go to Uni. But its early and I am up listening to this over a cup of early grey (as recommended by my wee sister Debs) of course I am not saying goodbye, though:

Icarus @ 59 # 299

Phew what a day yesterday; up at 5 to drive then teach, 9-12, have a couple of meetings, then skip lunch to run down to the Cathedral for an afternoon graduation - they ran from Tuesday morning until Friday afternoon, the stamina of those who attended every one is amazing. But Friday afternoon was capped off by a hugely amazing rendition of We're not waving goodbye, the song I wrote with Hanna curtain. I am so glad I managed to be there for the performance because wow! It was amazing, and to hear a whole cathedral of people clapping along to the refrain, 'we're moving on...' was something else - you had to be there. My old friend, Liz Stuart, The Deputy Vice Chancellor sent  note that said, 'That song was beautiful. The congregation loved it!'' And it was great to hear and they did and Hannah and I are rightly proud and pleased, and we have agreed to collaborate more - well to be fair she offered because she is top drawer. So there it goes, I nearly missed it but confess my life has been one of moments like this, the huge highs just keep coming along... And then to cap it all off, straight from the drive back from Winchester we drove on to Hailsham, just up past Eastbourne to see Karine Polwart and it was a top evening. Phew, a long day but I guess turning sixty has nothing to do with those days slowing down. I am a very lucky boy, Last night's gig was in a small provincial theatre (and I love the intimacy of small town theatres) And I guess I will never see this pair in one of them now so I post this here - last night was a special gig, intimate and warm and this would be the same - and indeed I plan to take part in one myself come the new year, but this blog will be finished by then :0)

Icarus @ 59 # 298

Up at 5am for the Winchester drive, dark outside but surprisingly warm, Wake Up to Money is casting a gloomy spell because the markets are down and my daily dollar is worth less than yesterday. Oh well, I guess I will just have to deal with the uncertainty. Today my song will be sung in the Cathedral, tonight I am off to see KP, just the bookends to another exciting day in what has been quite an exciting year thus far - rivers run and rivers flow - and I must run, I have an 8am meeting.

Icarus @ 59 # 297

Truly international; last night I had a meeting with one of my research students and got home around 9.30pm, a light supper, shower and early bed to get up at 5.45am for an Australian Skype call this morning, another meeting with a research student and her Australian supervisor. Exhausting but interesting and its great to see ideas forming themselves in projects then the basis for a Doctoral thesis - even if I do sometimes wonder how I got here and being able to do this. But the technology is great. I can supervise someone 10,000 miles away, last night Abbi sent me a funny video of her having a wobbly on court only ten minutes after it happened and earlier I received a card full of water accompanying a box full of water and poems by mail, in conventional paper, hand crafted by Jen Webb. I love how it all rubs together and this week is graduation and the song I wrote with the wonderful Hannah Curtain is being sung in Winchester Cathedral, which was built in 1093, I mean how cool is that, over a thousand years of contemplation and my              song will be part of it, traces will be left in the bricks and in the echoes of centuries. I am so blooming tired but one day it will all make sense. But tomorrow night I am going to see this lady:

Icarus @ 59 # 296

I always try to give money to buskers and the only criteria is I have some to give. The reason for this is simple, they light up a city. Yesterday, while walking through Winchester (the picture is Arezzo btw) I was really impressed by the young guitar player and later the sax player with the beat up sax, they really help to bring the city centre alive. I have done some busking in my own time and had a fine time of it. Once in the south of France, In San Tropez, when I was undergraduate age, footloose and well free of the strains of life - 'ah but, I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now...' I sang that, by the way. And that was a time, I was eighteen and took a train from Edinburgh and after a couple of days landed in Marseille, then meandered along the coast. I'm not nostalgic for that time but I did love it, everything, the atmosphere, the climate, the joy... It was a long time ago but I left something there... funny how I awake thinking of that, this morning. I was quite taken by this when I first heard it - a contemporary piece but strangely old sounding, I haven't travelled east much (only as far as Australia, but I might:

Icarus @ 59 # 295

Booted and suited today for graduation and it was great to see some old faces, many of them for the very last time, as they move on with their lives. What I didn't see today was anyone who had any regrets about coming to university. Burdened with debt and dodgy job prospects seemed to have no effect at all. In fact there was an overwhelming sense of optimism virtually glowing from them and their parents and friends. Heartening, truly heartening to see young, vibrant, intelligent, interested and interesting people taking up their place in the world. How can anyone say the world is not a better place because of this? Ours is a country of opportunity and graduates have a huge part to play, its a pity they attract such bad press when we all know that they are the answer not the problem in an extremely badly governed country, with a government who wouldn't recognise talent if it kicked them. The hope is that those graduates will come to realise this and give our bad government the kicking it deserves. This song came up in conversation today but it never needs a reason to be heard, from The Graduate:

Icarus @ 59 # 294

Seaside postcard jokes and kiss-me-quick hats have a great deal to say about humour in the UK, I grant you that. Yesterday one of my colleagues remarked how wonderful it was to see two women holding hands on campus in Winchester - and indeed it is great how liberated they should feel. And that is common with undergraduates who should feel relaxed around their University. But strolling through Brighton today and having a laugh in a coffee bar with two mothers and their children, and chatting about coffee with the two boy barristas, and following the hand holding men and men and women and women and women and men around Kensington Gardens I am aware how blessed Brighton is as a town to live in. What is unusual for me is that I noticed, I guess, because (for a change) I was paying attention (because of the Winchester idea running through my thoughts). Up until now (after nearly twenty-five years in Brighton) I haven't really known the carefree to be anything but the status quo. That is not to say there aren't problems, of course there are, I was insulted at a football match yesterday (just banter - huh). But I am grown up enough to knock it into the kiss-me-quick category of the unreconstructed (I hope) because I am not too quick to take offense - although the guy who dumped two empty yoghurt pots on a street table and then walked off left me speechless. I mean why; his litter just became mine. Its a small problem for a Monday morning when I have a very full week ahead of me - and I can't get the diary to sit still - and typing with the left little finger out of action is also a challenge. Its only a little thing and temporary but still a reminder of how adjustments need to be made to even the smallest of problems. This has become a Zen cliche by Runi but hey, what is life if not, sometimes:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and right doing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

We have had a great moon all weekend - to be loved is divine:

Icarus @ 59 # 293

Remember those Sunday mornings, rumpled sheets, tea in bed, reading the newspapers and surfacing just in time for lunch at a pub chosen by consensus. Or ignore the rumpled bed and getting down to the beach as the sun rises in the west; south; sky. This Sunday I have already been awake for about two hours, the first hour was spent tiding up a very messy study, the second trying to get some work done  out of the tidied up paper before I can try to have a proper Sunday (alas - I see more work spreading before me - and this blog is just an interlude). Is it nostalgia? Did those days ever really exist? And actually does anyone really want to read this (that) I doubt it really. Yesterday, in an effort to at least forget I had chopped the tip off my finger (which I confess I am having difficulty with - typing with doubled up bandaids is not easy) I read this,“Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.” And I guess we could change the word haiku to be many different things (and it will be different for different people with different religious persuasions, thoughts, ideas and so on) because I realise I am not writing here but just thinking out loud. Thinking thoughts and pouring them out willy-nilly rather than trying to gather them into a sense of meaning - the still quiet of a Sunday morning, cats at the back door, an autumnal garden yawning, warm tea in a mug, the faint hum of the fridge, a Victorian house creaking, gold and red and orange leaves dropping, a grey sky dawning, it is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life... take time for guitars and mandolins:

Icarus @ 59 # 292

Goodness but we had a right storm last night. I drove home from Winchester straight into it at about seven in the evening and then it kicked on. This picture is not treated, its a sculpture on the top of one of the University buildings yesterday. The monochrome, grey black is as it was, I just snapped it as I walked past on the way back to my office. But this weather is allowing me to catch up with my diary - the Brighton Photo Biennial is something I will catch up on tomorrow but I also want to see the Sex and Sexuality in the 19C exhibition at the V&A and also Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination at the BL - which I guess I can visit in one go, with a single trip up to London. All I can do is hope things settle down work-wise so I can get some time, never seen anything like it - and what with re-writing and editing a really complicated and detailed newsletter on CSA with the LSCB (with whom I volunteer) the weekend is taken too. Of course, I don't mind this busy life, its seasonal, twelve weeks on teaching and then a research and writing phase, then twelve weeks on teaching, followed by another research and writing phase and you get used to organising your life in this way. Unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't and all kinds of things crossover. Not to worry. It rained all night and carried on to this morning, I heard it and as I brewed the early grey this morning - actually not - Fairtrade Citrus Grey - well recommended I can tell you - I remembered one of the very first song lines I ever wrote (thirteen and already pretentious) but I can even remember the tune so I strummed this (bit predictable): 'I watch the rain roll down the window, pounding like the storm in my heart...' Now I didn't have a storm pounding in my heart at thirteen, if indeed I have ever had such a thing, most of my troubles have been a precipitation of rain, not much more than a drizzle or the haar rolling in from the North Sea. And so it should remain, I say! However, song writing is like that, tugging at the heartstrings of others who might, as you look for a solution or resolution (well that's how I approach it these days). I bought a new LP this week - remember how that used to be a huge event (goodness U2 sent me a rubbish one for free via iTunes) - it is Standing in the Breach by Jackson Browne. Anyway, not his classic best but a new studio LP from Jackson Browne always has something interesting on it. I love these Tiny Desk Concerts (they book the most amazing people to sing in the back of a shop for broadcast):

Icarus @ 59 # 291

4.50 in the morning, dark and cold, organising a banana an orange and an apple on the kitchen table for lunch, listening to 'Up All Night' and waiting for 'On the Money' on the radio, hearing that UKIP have an MP in the British Parliament (which just goes to show how little imagination people really have - and its an indicator that British politics is about to take a lurch to the right for the bad. But enough of all that. I have had enough of domestic politics for now and I am in despair at the state of the middle east - goodness but we have contributed to a huge mess there, although they are also making a hash of it for themselves. Nevertheless, I refuse to feel glum, after extensive pushing and prodding, blood tests, blood pressure tests, urine tests, and other bits and bobs it turns out I am in rude health. Thus, rudeness is my watch word for the day, so here goes, UKIP you can Kip Off, you will not spoil my life, please come canvassing at my front door so I can tell you to  frack off (fracking is the new linguistic insult which suggests they are sucking noxious gas out of their own innards to poison people - well they can take their little englander ideas elsewhere) - me, I will be with Neil, strumming the guitar pictured above (by Folon - a famous Belgian):

Icarus @ 59 # 290

Last night there was a Blood Moon. It was the result of a lunar eclipse - which is the second to occur this year. The moon, our only natural satellite, was fully covered by the Earth's shadow and it appeared orange or red as a result of sunlight scattering off our atmosphere, hence the blood in the name. Weather permitting, skywatchers in North America, Australia, western South America and parts of East Asia could see it but unfortunately not us - sigh, and the next eclipse is not expected to take place on 4 April 2015. Who can wait that long, we are not used to it. Thus, I was about to acknowledge the kid in the candy shop culture we have come to accept is not as simple as it always seems - and then I realised I could watch the live feed from NASA, isn't that amazing - kid in the candy shop after all. You will remember I posted this haiku last week or so:

The clouds come and go,
providing a rest for all
the moon viewers 

But of course these lines are translated from the original Japanese so we are at the mercy of the translator. Another translation gives it thus:

Occasional clouds
one gets a rest
from moon-viewing

And then, having never attempted a haiku I tried my own, as an erasure, just to see if I could, but I am not sure I have the syllable count right, still, its a start:

A blood moon
seven story songs of Icarus
falling into the sea 

And because we are on the subject of the moon: 

Icarus @ 59 # 289

Thunder and the cats have run for shelter, their early morning eagerness to run into the garden has been curtailed. I like a good storm and this one is welcome because we haven't had more than a smattering of rain in over a month. I am not one of those bloggers obsessed by weather, indeed not a person obsessed by weather, but it does affect moods and the way life is viewed, that can't be in doubt. Having had two late working nights, eating both nights at around 11, I had hoped to get a stiff Brighton breeze to cycle through this afternoon. Time will tell - and there goes another thunder peel and the cats are still under the kitchen table I am writing this piece at. And I am wondering too how this spider structure is faring - photographed in Winchester, yesterday, these huge spider webs are a wonder of solo engineering, the work, the effort, the creative thought are really quite astonishing, and yet all so temporal. Happy, rainy Wednesday, I can work at home today and I have much to do, but it is a treat to be able to do so at my own kitchen table. I might listen to this as I write (and I am really excited about what I am writing):

Icarus @ 59 # 288

Goodness but it is strange writing this at this time of the day - its almost like, what should I say? How the end of the working day feels different from the beginning - except this isn't the end because there is another stint to go. After which I will drive home around 9 and arrive around 10.30; adding that to last night's long one too I will be ready to sit in my own kitchen to strum the dobro, nary fit for much else, but that is just ok. I will write more tomorrow, this is just a fleeting dash before I do indeed dash... In the meantime I have this playing in my office, enjoy:

Icarus @ 59 # 287

Seagulls, mosaic street art, just outside Kensington Gardens in Brighton - which is one of my favourite streets. I have been reading Milan Kundera's essay, 'Getting Into the Soul of Things,' for a piece I am researching and I worry about such terms as, 'soul' for there will be many disagreements on its meaning and relevance in different cultures and religions. And indeed, yesterday I was also reading Emily Dickinson's poem, Heaven Has Different Signs to Me, and they way we cannot pin meaning down, even though we try:

Heaven" has different Signs—to me—
Sometimes, I think that Noon
Is but a symbol of the Place—
And when again, at Dawn,
And yesterday I saw the first notes in the autumnal sky, like annotations, minims, crotchets and quavers, beamed notes with sharps and flats and compound time signatures, and the fleeting signs of not yet murmuring starlings gather near the ghost of the West Pier. And I always wondered what that murmuring meant. Whatever it is, I will be looking out for them at dusk as the sun drops down over Shoreham power station, far to the west of the pier, where as Dickinson says,
The Orchard, when the Sun is on—
The Triumph of the Birds
When they together Victory make—
Some Carnivals of Clouds—

The Rapture of a finished Day—
Returning to the West—
All these—remind us of the place
That Men call "paradise"—

Itself be fairer—we suppose—
But how Ourself, shall be
Adorned, for a Superior Grace—
Not yet, our eyes can see— 

Icarus @ 59 # 286

This picture is what Sunday mornings are made for - a crisp spring, warm summer, breezy autumn or a cold white winter, the beach, the sea and a bicycle are the accoutrements to abstruser musings, careless thoughts, thoughtless ideas, thoughtful moments of lucidity that soon become over-shadowed by silliness. But this early morning cycle, run or stroll allows me to muse before the day brings its new agenda - I have to work today, no choice, I owe it to others,  but hey ho, I get other days off. And there are things coming up. I will miss the opening weekend of Brighton's Photo Biennial 2014 http://bpb.org.uk/2014/ but that's ok, I can catch up in my own time. Like  Thursday morning when the rest of the world is doing what I am this weekend, for example. And that way there will be less crowd etc, etc. Of course, I am unlikely to be accompanied or bump into anyone I know but that is not unusual - and it beats spending the time catching up on a pile pf London Review of Books which are still in their wrapper. I should have a six monthly subscription instead of an annual one so I can catch up. I can't be the only one who doesn't have the time. May be I should swap it for Granta (which I prefer - so I can't remember why I don't). And so while I think about Biennial's and I wish I was in Venice for theirs, and I really enjoyed Sydney's when I was there - and I could revisit that trip here sometime (I wrote about it aeons ago) - time is miles and zip... he was gone before he could say Baroque:

Icarus @ 59 # 285

Ochone! One hundred days of solitude is the title of a Gabriel Garcia novel, an extremely good novel which I have started to read again as I contemplate the last hundred day countdown to my being sixty. How strange it will be to reach one of the milestones viewed from childhood as the age of the ancients. A photograph exhibition is about to begin in Brighton and I am hoping to take a lot of it it - indeed I have an invitation to a viewing, which I will certainly be taking up. And I am reminded of a Jacques Derrida's quotation on the photograph (certainly the photograph of people), 'Whatever precautions you take so the photograph will look like this or that, there comes a moment when the photograph surprises you. It is the other's gaze that wins out and decides...' (At least I think that is correct. I am running to Winchester this morning, so this is short, but I leave with a picture of my returning gaze, make of it what you will. Happy Saturday, I was thinking maybe I could take tomorrow off - alas, I just remembered not - oh well, here is my oxymoronic tip for the day, 'get a flu jab, it'll make you feel bad for the better'. I love the sound of the mandolin and I might get lessons to improve my fumbling around. But this is posted for one of my sisters and niece to remind them of Venice and milestones:

Icarus @ 59 # 284

For Mikhail Bakhtin, dialogue is a form of relationality that defines our being in the world. In fact, there is no such thing as a monologue for we are always in a state of criss-crossing a multiple discourse. Even as I write this the radio is playing, someone outside is shouting at a dog (and quite right too), I am hearing that my daughter isn't well (nothing serious), my son is texting about where in the library he likes to work and even as I type I am thinking about when next to buy a flight to Edinburgh to see my dad; but also I am in a state of constant flux created by my cultural conditioning, surroundings and languages, not to mention the languages and cultures I have never come across or don't know about because there is only so much of the world we can take in. I took this picture in the Metropolitan in New York. Is it art or an artefact of  early written language, or both? And if you look really carefully you may see a ghosted image of the photographer too. There is only so much dialogue we can take in... Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, 'The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.' Is that what is happening here, in this blog, am I reflecting on the broken dialogues of my own life, on what I no longer do? Goodness, surely not, otherwise I feel a huge sigh coming on. Well here is another Schopenhauer quotation I have in my notebook (I am collecting material again because I am writing an article on 'broken dialogues') 'Music is the melody whose text is the world.' Somehow it describes Lévon Minassian and Armand Amar's Dara Nuni well. I know nothing about Armenia except what this piece, and other pieces from them can tell me, it is the melody of the text of their world; a world which I do not know - happy Friday, its a 5am start (and boy did that flu jab kick in - I will have better starts): 

Icarus @ 59 # 283

Looking for locations - the more I think about it the more I am convinced that a Cloud Gate would look great in Brighton. It would certainly look better than the new i360 West Pier Observation Tower that's planned - and which nobody seems to want - and oh dear, its been designed by the London Eye people. The thing is, it shows no street imagination. You will have to pay to get into it, then go to the top to see anything. Whereas the Cloud Gate will be on the ground for us all to walk around and interact with - for free. But what I am really looking for is a return to this: (4) Slow down your busy mind I am doing a huge amount at the moment, my own job plus and I volunteer in Winchester and also volunteer in Brighton, the combination takes up a huge amount of time. And I have just cut eight lines out of this post explaining three wasted hours yesterday at the hands of the medical profession - ooh sah, said Abbi, ooh sah, I will find those three hours from elsewhere but not before I have to go back this morning, to repeat something that could have been achieved yesterday. It is all fine, it is all calm, it is all... it is... and breathe in... and out... and in... the secret of life is to keep breathing... this music is from Bab' Aziz: the prince who contemplated his soul. I came back to it last night as I was reading before sleeping and I was thinking about the new bombing campaign my country has begun in Iraq, and the mess we helped to create. I don't have answers to the problems but i was contemplating the people caught up in the fall out. The women, the children, the innocents... people with feelings and desires and hope and dreams, lots of hopes and dreams, caught up in a Cloud Gate, all swimming around with no one to hear them. (4) Slow down your busy mind - my troubles are first world troubles - ooh sah... they will pass

Icarus @ 59 # 282

The Bean in Chicago, now I might have a bias here but I would rather have this in Brighton than those blooming 'eye' wheels that have sprung up everywhere. The Brighton one is even more useless than others I have seen; why would anyone sit for all that time just looking out at the changing view of the sea? Defeats me, I can do that from my attic window. It also strikes me that city councils have little idea when it comes to public artefacts - London has one so must we all. Of course its not really new, Vienna has had one almost for ever. The London Eye had its place then it becomes a slow process of un-imagination, oh dear Brighton, surely a Bean would have been better, being able to see the world from different angles and the normal sense of parallax is turned through the reflection which I just like the idea of. Of course seeing the world differently is something I have tried to do all my life - perhaps I should suggest such a sculpture should be erected on Cathedral Green in Winchester - which is a great place but a little dull. Imagine Winchester Cathedral being reflected and refracted through a Bean - showing a new England. Last night I fell asleep listening to this and I am hoping to buy tickets for KP's Hailsham show.