Icarus pondering # 9

A very good friend sent me this picture and I will pin it on my wall as a reminder that we can all be Icarus for a day... 

goodness...

its a long way down from up here...

Icarus pondering # 8

Blue

I like ellipses, always have, the uncertainty of the unsaid and unsayable, or just the pretence that something profound exists in their appearance... when there may be nothing there at all. Alain de Botton writes in a chapter called Ellipses, 'There is an Arabic saying that the soul travels at the pace of a camel. While most of our self is led by the strict demands of timetables and diaries, our soul, the seat of the heart trails nostalgically behind, burdened by the weight of memory.' Well I just don't trust that. I mean is it the 'weight of memory' or the anticipation of future nostalgia? I like to anticipate nostalgia to come rather than dwelling on the past. Of course there are some who would say the opposite about me. Indeed have said the opposite, that in fact I am terribly nostalgic for the past but is it just ellipses... the stories of a nostalgic past that never actually existed, the rewriting of a past that never happened, the ellipses... that blur the world that did. Nostalgia, a return to a place that never existed in the first place; its the real life version of airbrushing. Ellipses allow for that... So when the questions arise, 'how was your weekend, your day, your life...' the answer is always...

Icarus pondering # 7

How lucky am I # 2? Very lucky indeed, that's how lucky. I am just home from Cape Town and wow; strolling under an African sky; staring into Nelson's cell on Robben island; sipping Stellenbosch wine; chatting to young men and women full of hope, so full of hope on the Cape of Good, how lucky am I, lucky, lucky, lucky enough to post pictures like these below (look while listening to this) hopefully homeless no more:

Under an African moonlit sky

Slave bell

Stellenbosch

Street art

At last

Different circumstances

Table mountain from the ferry to Robben Island

Welcome to Robben Island

Nelson M's cell

Free at last

Free at last

Laughing lion

Light in the free world

The devil sends out a smoking challenge

Icarus pondering # 6

Lucky boy, I am

How lucky am I? Very, I should say. The year is hardly settled and I have been in Edinburgh London, Oklahoma, New York and Barcelona, and next week I fly to Cape Town, drive to Stellenbosch and the summer hasn't even arrived; which will bring Edinburgh again and then sunnier climes. Oh yes, lucky I am. And today, even this early, I have dusted two papers and just have some tidying up to do before I get my hairs cut. And I am reminded of a poem I read last night. Its by Julia Copus,

At the turn of the day, as the hours unfurled

and the world came loose from the drift of the world,

I span while the seasounds flared and dwindled...

And this cello song and kaleidoscope film, lovely:

Icarus pondering # 5

Writing

Today is a day for writing. The rain continues without pause or consideration for clothes lines and flooded lawns that will not survive the spring at this rate. And as I write I will listen to Toumani Diabate's Mande Variations as I wrestle with abstruser musings (to paraphrase Sam Coleridge from Frost at Midnight). How I wish the writing was for pleasure, but alas I have a Journal paper to edit (big time - sigh). But what I won't be doing is sitting like this (right) on this Mallorcan patio, drinking coffee and typing while the world still sleeps. This is not the weather nor the time of year. Instead I will be here, at this desk writing by low lighting, in the spring darkness, on a damp English morning. But fear not, I will inject spice into my day by drinking sparkling water laced with ginger and lemon grass to inject some zest and enthusiasm where hitherto it had lain in slumber, in a long forgotten bed, a couple of hours ago. Italo Calvino said, 'Leopardi maintained that the more vague and imprecise language is, the more poetic it becomes. I might mention in passing that as far as I know Italian is the only language in which the word vago (vague) also means "lovely, attractive." Starting out from the original meaning of "wandering," the word vago still carries an idea of movement and mutability which in Italian is associated both with uncertainty and indefiniteness and with gracefulness and pleasure.' And this idea of uncertain, indefinite, graceful pleasure reminds me once again of that vague, lovely, attractive flying boy, wandering - abstruser musings, perhaps.

Icarus pondering # 4

This is a picture of Vladimir Nabokov looking out of car window. He liked to work in the car, writing on index cards. - LIFE (Ithaca State, NY, 1958) and I was sent this picture and a quotation last night, which I love: 'A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That's what I like about coincidence.' Vladimir Nabokov, Laughter in the Rain, and that's what I like about coincidence, it is so ironic. And by coincidence, this picture is how I feel at the moment, 

small and a little lost because I can't seem to shake the blues of a really hefty cold that just wont go away. The mornings are fine and I feel great but by about three in the afternoon I am ready for bed. But never mind, I hope this will be the last monochrome posting and things will pick up soon. This song cheers, 'I think I'll pack it in and buy a pick up, take it down to L.A...: