Not Dusty
Forests of people are leaving this office at the moment. Various circumstances are responsible but it’s all gone a bit roller-coaster at the moment. I just wish it would rain.
Last weekend was, in contrast, very peaceful, involving a standard English Village fete which had all the required elements of strange stalls, raffles and lots and lots of cake and tea. The evening was rounded off with a free performance of some scenes from A Midsummer Night’s dream by the village kids. It was of course Midsummer Day itself which conspired to elevate the whole thing to brilliance. I was stunned that so many young children had the discipline to learn loads of lines all on their own. Puck was especially charming, a sort of Alfie with magic. I did rant about the BBC retelling not having any proper atmosphere but it does help to have the thing on the very day. I was also able to pander to my new obsession with photographing clouds.
Several books have been finished in the last week or two. I finished the CloudSpotters handbook and can now tell the difference between a Cumulus-Congestus-Castellanus and Nimbo-Stratus-RosaHatticus. I then whistled through Tony Hawks’ A Piano in the Pyrenees which was much more laid-back than his previous comedy-fests though I suppose his serious, caring side came through in Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, something evident through his Moldovan Children’s Care Centre. A Piano in the Pyrenees seemed to be his settling down book. The last completed book was Offshore by Ben Fogle, his follow-up to his odyssey around the various outposts of Empire, this time visiting Islands closer to home, though Rockall might as well be in the middle of the Atlantic. Oh! It is! Not quite as well-written as the first; it felt a bit rushed and glib, though readable just the same. I am afraid I have gone back to an old favourite for the next book – Paradise News by David Lodge, a novel about theology, self-doubt and Grass skirts.
Friday, June 16, 2006
That Cloud Looks Like One of Those Brown China Things.
.. or maybe Cumulus Castellus.
Warning – Spoiler (or maybe a shortcut to save you having to read in).
Well I finished Foucault’s Pendulum and I was right – the whole mess of conspiracies was rubbish. The problem was that there were hundreds of people who believed it wasn’t rubbish and killed people to try and get parts of the message. There was some unpleasantness with ectoplasm which went against me being wholly taken in by the supposed secrets of The Templars. I wouldn’t say it was a wonderful book, just a lot of deep stuff, unconnected knowledge about the world. Maybe I lost some of the plot but it seemed that even in their belief that the whole thing was just a game, the narrator and his colleagues somehow relished the idea that they really had found something important. Vast swathes of the history just washed over me without sinking in though this in itself made me notice a difference between the pain of reading such things when I was younger and how I seem to be able to continue with them these days. Now this could be sign that I have managed to become more disciplined in how I read or that my brain is failing and can happily muse of other things while letting the garbage filter through the grey matter, sometimes sticking and sometimes just dribbling out onto the floor.
By the title I expect you will have guessed that I have started The Cloudspotter’s Guide. Now most of this goes in and seems to be sticking because I can look up at the sky and have a good guess at what I am seeing. I know the three species of Cumulus and how they differ from CumuloNimbus. I have also decided that my favourite cloud is actually NimboStratus, the deep grey blanket which pours out rain (or snow) for hours on end. Sad man I am. The engraving-style pictures which precede each chapter are rather fun and the one for NimboStratus shows a deep grey sky, a distance church just visible in the murk and some duck on a small stream in a gully. Very atmospheric though I think the rain that imagine in the picture is only implied.
I was actually thinking about how rain is show in animations. It must be one of the hardest things to animate realistically. I am sure that all those Hanna-Barbera cheapies just showed the standard oblique lines using some very simple repeating frames. But if you are doing something a little better, like maybe Spirited Away, how do you get the real atmosphere. From this I now realise that my knowledge of animation is quite limited. I am sure there must be many anime things with very good rain.
Obligatory World Cup Reference.
I am sorry to report that I guessed The Sun’s Sport headline for today. While the thought that they could actually use “A Late Rally at Nuremberg” got me angry, I had to take a step back to realise that I had actually thought of it as well. I like to think that this just shows knowledge of history and a sad capacity for bad puns. It might also have been that David Baddiel said something along the same lines during the World Cup Edition of Heresy.
.. or maybe Cumulus Castellus.
Warning – Spoiler (or maybe a shortcut to save you having to read in).
Well I finished Foucault’s Pendulum and I was right – the whole mess of conspiracies was rubbish. The problem was that there were hundreds of people who believed it wasn’t rubbish and killed people to try and get parts of the message. There was some unpleasantness with ectoplasm which went against me being wholly taken in by the supposed secrets of The Templars. I wouldn’t say it was a wonderful book, just a lot of deep stuff, unconnected knowledge about the world. Maybe I lost some of the plot but it seemed that even in their belief that the whole thing was just a game, the narrator and his colleagues somehow relished the idea that they really had found something important. Vast swathes of the history just washed over me without sinking in though this in itself made me notice a difference between the pain of reading such things when I was younger and how I seem to be able to continue with them these days. Now this could be sign that I have managed to become more disciplined in how I read or that my brain is failing and can happily muse of other things while letting the garbage filter through the grey matter, sometimes sticking and sometimes just dribbling out onto the floor.
By the title I expect you will have guessed that I have started The Cloudspotter’s Guide. Now most of this goes in and seems to be sticking because I can look up at the sky and have a good guess at what I am seeing. I know the three species of Cumulus and how they differ from CumuloNimbus. I have also decided that my favourite cloud is actually NimboStratus, the deep grey blanket which pours out rain (or snow) for hours on end. Sad man I am. The engraving-style pictures which precede each chapter are rather fun and the one for NimboStratus shows a deep grey sky, a distance church just visible in the murk and some duck on a small stream in a gully. Very atmospheric though I think the rain that imagine in the picture is only implied.
I was actually thinking about how rain is show in animations. It must be one of the hardest things to animate realistically. I am sure that all those Hanna-Barbera cheapies just showed the standard oblique lines using some very simple repeating frames. But if you are doing something a little better, like maybe Spirited Away, how do you get the real atmosphere. From this I now realise that my knowledge of animation is quite limited. I am sure there must be many anime things with very good rain.
Obligatory World Cup Reference.
I am sorry to report that I guessed The Sun’s Sport headline for today. While the thought that they could actually use “A Late Rally at Nuremberg” got me angry, I had to take a step back to realise that I had actually thought of it as well. I like to think that this just shows knowledge of history and a sad capacity for bad puns. It might also have been that David Baddiel said something along the same lines during the World Cup Edition of Heresy.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Janet Street Porter is a Rabbit
I am deep in ‘the plan’ that forms the centre of Foucault’s Pendulum. Lots of the detail of secret organisations seeming to be seeded in The Templars, those guys with the traditional Crusader outfit – white tunic, red cross etc – is just noise. I don’t think I have the intellectual rigour to sort out all the mess but then again that may be the point of the whole thing. The book started with one of the protagonists in mortal peril and the narrator stuck in a strange place waiting for something momentous to occur. The heart of the book is the gradual development of connections between the standard mess of mystical writing that forms the basis of most Glastonbury book shops, stuff by the diabolicals as they are called in this book. And it is a mess, a complex web of meetings and messages and missed meetings and a gradual development of mistrust between the supposedly fragmented remains of the Templars and their sister organisations. The theme of The *cough* da Vinci Code are only a tiny part of this brick but even without having read DVC or seen the film, the build up to a denouement in some Paris building seems to be in both FP and Dan Brown’s book. I ask which came first. I will get there.
Anyway, what about morons? Well in Foucault’s Pendulum, one of the characters describes the fact that we generally behave with elements of four ‘types’ one of which is the Moron, characterised by getting their reasoning wrong and although I can see this behaviour in myself, but it is funny how many times you can spot it in the media these days. Watch out for the sidekick.
I also like the bit about Creationist Science going under the Department of Oxymoronics. By the way, I have just looked at the links from the page about morons etc and I think you should really avoid clicking any of them.
I am deep in ‘the plan’ that forms the centre of Foucault’s Pendulum. Lots of the detail of secret organisations seeming to be seeded in The Templars, those guys with the traditional Crusader outfit – white tunic, red cross etc – is just noise. I don’t think I have the intellectual rigour to sort out all the mess but then again that may be the point of the whole thing. The book started with one of the protagonists in mortal peril and the narrator stuck in a strange place waiting for something momentous to occur. The heart of the book is the gradual development of connections between the standard mess of mystical writing that forms the basis of most Glastonbury book shops, stuff by the diabolicals as they are called in this book. And it is a mess, a complex web of meetings and messages and missed meetings and a gradual development of mistrust between the supposedly fragmented remains of the Templars and their sister organisations. The theme of The *cough* da Vinci Code are only a tiny part of this brick but even without having read DVC or seen the film, the build up to a denouement in some Paris building seems to be in both FP and Dan Brown’s book. I ask which came first. I will get there.
Anyway, what about morons? Well in Foucault’s Pendulum, one of the characters describes the fact that we generally behave with elements of four ‘types’ one of which is the Moron, characterised by getting their reasoning wrong and although I can see this behaviour in myself, but it is funny how many times you can spot it in the media these days. Watch out for the sidekick.
I also like the bit about Creationist Science going under the Department of Oxymoronics. By the way, I have just looked at the links from the page about morons etc and I think you should really avoid clicking any of them.
Thick as a Brick
Listening to … shh … Jethro Tull - luverly flute that.
Interesting fact for today – The man who recorded one of the “Mind the Gap” announcements for The Tube is Tim Bentinck who plays David Archer in … er … The Archers (Warning - that article on Wikipedia is longer than you might wish for).
I am sure you will sleep better for knowing that. Indeed you may actually be sent off to sleep by the Archers article though I did discover that Brian Eno was reported to have remixed the theme tune (Barwick Green or possibly dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum) though this was an April Fool joke in the end. However, Mr. English National Opera has produced the current Paul Simon Album, Surprise and has done very well. Thinking about it, this is not so strange; Paul Simon’s poetic lyrics have always been left-field in a sort of wordy version of what Brian Eno does with sound (and indeed his own lyrics).
More musical madness manifests momentarily.
Last Friday I tuned in to Radio 3 for the drive home, instead of the standard Radio 4 for Last Word – The obituary programme and Francine Stock’s Film Programme.
Friday late afternoon on Radio 3 is the time for Jazz Legends which ranges throughout the genre from rag to improve. Last Friday’s legend was Derek Bailey, an extreme and experimental guitarist who at first listen had appeared to abandon the normal musical pillars of melody, harmony, rhythm, scale and anything else that might distinguish music from the sounds of small children let loose with the contents of a toolbox. I was about to hit the fourth button on the radio when some spark of counterpoint drew me back in and I was hooked for the rest of the show. The final two pieces were from Bailey’s final album – Carpal Tunnel where he was experimenting with styles forced on him by that complaint. (This was probably the first sign of Motor Neurone disease which led to his death in December.) The first of the two pieces was him playing various experiments in a style that seemed extreme – no rhythm – no harmony – seemingly just random plucks and scrapes. Over this he explained what he was doing – it was just a ramble of seemingly-random sounds that happened to be made with a guitar. The second piece was recorded 12 weeks later and though at first it sounded not much more constructed than the previous track, it created strange counterpoints as if the random notes were apart by some strange and mystical musical distance – the golden ratio or pi or log 10 – wonderful. Harmonies rang out from the mush of notes in a way that suggested he had reached an agreement with his own improvisational style.
Next on Proteus and Ariel – Morons – a user’s guide.
Listening to … shh … Jethro Tull - luverly flute that.
Interesting fact for today – The man who recorded one of the “Mind the Gap” announcements for The Tube is Tim Bentinck who plays David Archer in … er … The Archers (Warning - that article on Wikipedia is longer than you might wish for).
I am sure you will sleep better for knowing that. Indeed you may actually be sent off to sleep by the Archers article though I did discover that Brian Eno was reported to have remixed the theme tune (Barwick Green or possibly dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum) though this was an April Fool joke in the end. However, Mr. English National Opera has produced the current Paul Simon Album, Surprise and has done very well. Thinking about it, this is not so strange; Paul Simon’s poetic lyrics have always been left-field in a sort of wordy version of what Brian Eno does with sound (and indeed his own lyrics).
More musical madness manifests momentarily.
Last Friday I tuned in to Radio 3 for the drive home, instead of the standard Radio 4 for Last Word – The obituary programme and Francine Stock’s Film Programme.
Friday late afternoon on Radio 3 is the time for Jazz Legends which ranges throughout the genre from rag to improve. Last Friday’s legend was Derek Bailey, an extreme and experimental guitarist who at first listen had appeared to abandon the normal musical pillars of melody, harmony, rhythm, scale and anything else that might distinguish music from the sounds of small children let loose with the contents of a toolbox. I was about to hit the fourth button on the radio when some spark of counterpoint drew me back in and I was hooked for the rest of the show. The final two pieces were from Bailey’s final album – Carpal Tunnel where he was experimenting with styles forced on him by that complaint. (This was probably the first sign of Motor Neurone disease which led to his death in December.) The first of the two pieces was him playing various experiments in a style that seemed extreme – no rhythm – no harmony – seemingly just random plucks and scrapes. Over this he explained what he was doing – it was just a ramble of seemingly-random sounds that happened to be made with a guitar. The second piece was recorded 12 weeks later and though at first it sounded not much more constructed than the previous track, it created strange counterpoints as if the random notes were apart by some strange and mystical musical distance – the golden ratio or pi or log 10 – wonderful. Harmonies rang out from the mush of notes in a way that suggested he had reached an agreement with his own improvisational style.
Next on Proteus and Ariel – Morons – a user’s guide.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
And the Meters are Over in the Red
Picture a day – bookish but alive with the wind that flows down from the heights over the smoky mills and rivers, marbled with fog and dew, out to sea and the empty waves of the Irish Sea. Talk to God here, to God and the empty sky that echoes nothing back at you. But there is nothing so I can see again because the wind has blown the dust from my eyes and all that glitter of seas is stretched out undisturbed in front of me, across the world to Boston and beyond. And God would you keep me safe from screaming voices and let me take my leaving of you seriously, to the edge of these moors and derelicts? I am playing at Chess with the bones of the world, with all the meters over in the red, up against their stops, straining against those pulses of tiny particles we know but cannot see. This was supposed to be your future. Where is your honour, your fame for being anything other than dead and sad for most days? At Midnight in this perfect world, everyone would know your name, and not dismiss anything as just noise in their experience, their selfish lives of longed-for greatness. This is darkness, blue and me and something beyond – something over all and nothing. I am, I am, I am a tangle of wires and Wir in space I do not have to live in. A ball a bottle in the secrets left to me and others. A lack of logic betrays me always.
Picture a day – bookish but alive with the wind that flows down from the heights over the smoky mills and rivers, marbled with fog and dew, out to sea and the empty waves of the Irish Sea. Talk to God here, to God and the empty sky that echoes nothing back at you. But there is nothing so I can see again because the wind has blown the dust from my eyes and all that glitter of seas is stretched out undisturbed in front of me, across the world to Boston and beyond. And God would you keep me safe from screaming voices and let me take my leaving of you seriously, to the edge of these moors and derelicts? I am playing at Chess with the bones of the world, with all the meters over in the red, up against their stops, straining against those pulses of tiny particles we know but cannot see. This was supposed to be your future. Where is your honour, your fame for being anything other than dead and sad for most days? At Midnight in this perfect world, everyone would know your name, and not dismiss anything as just noise in their experience, their selfish lives of longed-for greatness. This is darkness, blue and me and something beyond – something over all and nothing. I am, I am, I am a tangle of wires and Wir in space I do not have to live in. A ball a bottle in the secrets left to me and others. A lack of logic betrays me always.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Kinispots and Faculae
I wanted to put two nonsense words up there as the title but strangely the second one exists; it is the plural of the bright regions of the sun’s photosphere. DON’T GO AND LOOK FOR IT!
I wanted to watch the programme about Patrick Henry College on Channel 4 last night but I forgot about it. I had to content myself with getting annoyed about their statement of faith. The fact that this college apparently supplies the highest number of interns to the White House is very worrying. While the current incumbent is at least too canny to state this level of belief in the literalness of the Bible, I can see some seriously dangerous back-pedalling coming in the future. The bit about all those who die outside of Christ being confined in conscious torment for eternity is arrogant and cruel in the extreme. Even the Catholic Church seems about to abolish the concept of Limbo for unbaptised children (apparently partly in the face of the fact that most Moslems believe that ALL children go to Paradise) so PHC seems to be moving against the tide. I also discovered that Dante placed Saladin in Limbo along with Virgil and the other worthies rather than in hell as I imagined, though thinking about it I always had a sneaking respect for Saladin though this may have been reinforced by recent likening of current issues to Crusades. This fits with my view of the Knights Templar being better people than the normal view of them but again this is probably to do with current reading rather than any established belief of mine. It shows how much of the world only survives because people do respect other views rather than being arrogantly dismissive of them. There must be a dichotomy between the morality of being a Christian (at least as far as the morality that I see being a Christian virtue) and not being able to accept the existence of truth in any other religions. Indeed this must be true of any religion with a moral basis. I think I may be straying into the area of Moral relativism (or possibly logical positivism) but as I don’t know what any of these ‘isms’ actually mean I think I should steer clear of them.
In a nutshell you can :-
a. Believe that your religious views are right and everyone else’s are completely wrong and that they will burn in hell for being wrong. At least you are sticking to your religion. The point here is where you draw the line – see Emo Philips’ joke.
Remember – without faith I am nothing.
b. Believe that everyone is right and that all religions are a view into a sort of pool of spirituality – if you have a decent set of moral beliefs then you accept anything up to a point. This is definitely Moral relativism which is a bad thing for both PHC and the Vatican.
c. Realise that all this back-and-forth introduces so much doubt about what is right that you have to start thinking that only experience and scientific experiment can document the ‘truth’. Is this empiricism?
I suppose this leans dangerously into Philosophy, again something I know little about having got all I know from Sophie’s World.
All of this is noise – watch out for PHC is what I really mean.
All of this entry has been sound tracked by Gregorian Chant by the way.
I wanted to put two nonsense words up there as the title but strangely the second one exists; it is the plural of the bright regions of the sun’s photosphere. DON’T GO AND LOOK FOR IT!
I wanted to watch the programme about Patrick Henry College on Channel 4 last night but I forgot about it. I had to content myself with getting annoyed about their statement of faith. The fact that this college apparently supplies the highest number of interns to the White House is very worrying. While the current incumbent is at least too canny to state this level of belief in the literalness of the Bible, I can see some seriously dangerous back-pedalling coming in the future. The bit about all those who die outside of Christ being confined in conscious torment for eternity is arrogant and cruel in the extreme. Even the Catholic Church seems about to abolish the concept of Limbo for unbaptised children (apparently partly in the face of the fact that most Moslems believe that ALL children go to Paradise) so PHC seems to be moving against the tide. I also discovered that Dante placed Saladin in Limbo along with Virgil and the other worthies rather than in hell as I imagined, though thinking about it I always had a sneaking respect for Saladin though this may have been reinforced by recent likening of current issues to Crusades. This fits with my view of the Knights Templar being better people than the normal view of them but again this is probably to do with current reading rather than any established belief of mine. It shows how much of the world only survives because people do respect other views rather than being arrogantly dismissive of them. There must be a dichotomy between the morality of being a Christian (at least as far as the morality that I see being a Christian virtue) and not being able to accept the existence of truth in any other religions. Indeed this must be true of any religion with a moral basis. I think I may be straying into the area of Moral relativism (or possibly logical positivism) but as I don’t know what any of these ‘isms’ actually mean I think I should steer clear of them.
In a nutshell you can :-
a. Believe that your religious views are right and everyone else’s are completely wrong and that they will burn in hell for being wrong. At least you are sticking to your religion. The point here is where you draw the line – see Emo Philips’ joke.
Remember – without faith I am nothing.
b. Believe that everyone is right and that all religions are a view into a sort of pool of spirituality – if you have a decent set of moral beliefs then you accept anything up to a point. This is definitely Moral relativism which is a bad thing for both PHC and the Vatican.
c. Realise that all this back-and-forth introduces so much doubt about what is right that you have to start thinking that only experience and scientific experiment can document the ‘truth’. Is this empiricism?
I suppose this leans dangerously into Philosophy, again something I know little about having got all I know from Sophie’s World.
All of this is noise – watch out for PHC is what I really mean.
All of this entry has been sound tracked by Gregorian Chant by the way.
Those Two Must be out of Their Tiny Minds
The kitchen here had a very familiar smell this morning which took me right back to the backroom behind our chemistry lab at school. This room was ostensibly for the storage of dangerous chemicals and also included a tempting box with the standard radioactivity warning symbol on it. However, it was actually a sort of satellite staff room for the science teachers and lab assistants where they would make tea in a large chemistry beaker and add milk using pipettes – maybe that should be called teatration. There was probably only enough room for three people sat on stools but this cosiness was what was so attractive about it.
The corresponding room at my middle school was less inviting being lined with pickled biological specimens some of very dubious age and quality which rendered it as out-of-bounds for many of the more squeamish among us. The science teachers there would drink their tea at the high desks at the front of class. If you wanted to speak to them you had to approach and peek over the desk, standing on tip-toes unless you were invited up onto the raised bit behind.
I could continue with these reminiscences for ages but they seem out of place, needing a proper document, not that it would be interesting to anyone but me and maybe my daughter. Though it does involve escaped chinchillas, greedy locusts and a jet of flame from the gas taps that nearly required us to call out Red Adair.
And that is how I come to have no eyebrows.
The kitchen here had a very familiar smell this morning which took me right back to the backroom behind our chemistry lab at school. This room was ostensibly for the storage of dangerous chemicals and also included a tempting box with the standard radioactivity warning symbol on it. However, it was actually a sort of satellite staff room for the science teachers and lab assistants where they would make tea in a large chemistry beaker and add milk using pipettes – maybe that should be called teatration. There was probably only enough room for three people sat on stools but this cosiness was what was so attractive about it.
The corresponding room at my middle school was less inviting being lined with pickled biological specimens some of very dubious age and quality which rendered it as out-of-bounds for many of the more squeamish among us. The science teachers there would drink their tea at the high desks at the front of class. If you wanted to speak to them you had to approach and peek over the desk, standing on tip-toes unless you were invited up onto the raised bit behind.
I could continue with these reminiscences for ages but they seem out of place, needing a proper document, not that it would be interesting to anyone but me and maybe my daughter. Though it does involve escaped chinchillas, greedy locusts and a jet of flame from the gas taps that nearly required us to call out Red Adair.
And that is how I come to have no eyebrows.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Weeble Dweeb
This picture has everything about Legong dance, the movement, the grace, the atmosphere. What with Six Marimabs just coming up on the shuffle, I think you could say I am happy. There is something so other-worldly about this image, almost as if we have stepped into some Alien ritual. At the very least it takes us back in time though the processing into black-and-white has not rendered the picture antique in any way. It makes my effort, which I was always very proud of, seem clunky and badly-composed. This is the kind of stuff which makes me want to write poems. Which via Fotherington-Thomas has reminded me of being skitted over my membership of the Cloud Appreciation society this weekend. As a sensitive chap I'm not going to talk about it any more. So there.
This picture has everything about Legong dance, the movement, the grace, the atmosphere. What with Six Marimabs just coming up on the shuffle, I think you could say I am happy. There is something so other-worldly about this image, almost as if we have stepped into some Alien ritual. At the very least it takes us back in time though the processing into black-and-white has not rendered the picture antique in any way. It makes my effort, which I was always very proud of, seem clunky and badly-composed. This is the kind of stuff which makes me want to write poems. Which via Fotherington-Thomas has reminded me of being skitted over my membership of the Cloud Appreciation society this weekend. As a sensitive chap I'm not going to talk about it any more. So there.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Stockholm Syndrome
I want technology – specifically this, which will let me connect up the one remaining keyboard and stuff away into VB and the other way. Weekend toys and all for £25! I gave away – yes GAVE AWAY – all my other keyboards and stuff though I might be able request the Piano module back. I once saw a tiny piano module for sale – it was about the size of a thick paperback book – and I have been thinking of getting six of them to do a real live version of Six Pianos. However, the only one I can find can only be set to use one Midi Channel which is no good at all.
I want technology – specifically this, which will let me connect up the one remaining keyboard and stuff away into VB and the other way. Weekend toys and all for £25! I gave away – yes GAVE AWAY – all my other keyboards and stuff though I might be able request the Piano module back. I once saw a tiny piano module for sale – it was about the size of a thick paperback book – and I have been thinking of getting six of them to do a real live version of Six Pianos. However, the only one I can find can only be set to use one Midi Channel which is no good at all.
Rain on the Nachos
Listening to Tom’s Diner.
I heard Suzanne Vega sing this at the Empire in Liverpool in 1986 before it was on any album and it was breathtaking. I seem to remember she was attacked by some insect in the middle of it but I might have been dreaming. Wikipedia has just revealed that the actor “who had died while he was drinking” was in fact William Holden who I certainly have heard of. For years I was plagued by a film I saw as a child which starts with a man narrating a tale in flashback while his own body is floating face down in a swimming pool. No one I asked knew of this which shows how clever they were, for it is in fact Sunset Boulevard which is responsible for the line “I’m ready for my close-up”. It is one of those weird dateless films that we know was filmed at a specific time but actually works regardless of its era
The Cloudspotter’s Guide is making little squeaking noises by the side of the bed while I struggle though Foucault’s Pendulum. Actually, FP has suddenly stepped up a gear after trawling through a lot of background about The Knight’s Templar and The Rosicrucians. It seems to starting from a basis of dismissing the wider conspiracy-theory speculations regarding The Templars. The narrator is an expert on The Templars and is quite strong in his denial of all the normal rot about them but I get an inkling that he is about to discover that there is a link between these ideas and other things from the more disreputable ranges of historical research. I wonder if the denouement has all of this discovered truth converting back to being a lot of rot after all. We shall see.
I have been watching a lot of BBC4’s Silent Cinema Season. The show on British Silent film revealed many unknown films one of which – A Cottage on Dartmoor – had a real quality of menace about it. It made me think about a possible revival of Silent Cinema. Silent and Black and White of course. The two versions of Blackmail – one silent and one with sound – are equally valid though the sound one seemed to show that the Director and the Actors were only just getting used to speaking on film. There is a scene where a woman who has killed her potential rapist is asked to cut some bread with a knife while a gossip repeats the word “knife” over and over. In the silent version the visual concentration on the knife is enough to reinforce the idea of the stabbing. The repetition of the word seems too unnatural and forced. Still, what would make a good silent film these days? You could start out with some gentle documentary about someone’s life in a day, something which looks good visually but has no need of narrative. Maybe it could even have natural sound rather than music, just no speech. The BBC occasionally shows programmes from a series about children around the world. These seem to be funded as part of an umbrella that allows these gentle dramas to be made and shown on all the participating stations without any preference or prejudice.
This has been a ramble. I can’t get any enthusiasm to continue.
Listening to Tom’s Diner.
I heard Suzanne Vega sing this at the Empire in Liverpool in 1986 before it was on any album and it was breathtaking. I seem to remember she was attacked by some insect in the middle of it but I might have been dreaming. Wikipedia has just revealed that the actor “who had died while he was drinking” was in fact William Holden who I certainly have heard of. For years I was plagued by a film I saw as a child which starts with a man narrating a tale in flashback while his own body is floating face down in a swimming pool. No one I asked knew of this which shows how clever they were, for it is in fact Sunset Boulevard which is responsible for the line “I’m ready for my close-up”. It is one of those weird dateless films that we know was filmed at a specific time but actually works regardless of its era
The Cloudspotter’s Guide is making little squeaking noises by the side of the bed while I struggle though Foucault’s Pendulum. Actually, FP has suddenly stepped up a gear after trawling through a lot of background about The Knight’s Templar and The Rosicrucians. It seems to starting from a basis of dismissing the wider conspiracy-theory speculations regarding The Templars. The narrator is an expert on The Templars and is quite strong in his denial of all the normal rot about them but I get an inkling that he is about to discover that there is a link between these ideas and other things from the more disreputable ranges of historical research. I wonder if the denouement has all of this discovered truth converting back to being a lot of rot after all. We shall see.
I have been watching a lot of BBC4’s Silent Cinema Season. The show on British Silent film revealed many unknown films one of which – A Cottage on Dartmoor – had a real quality of menace about it. It made me think about a possible revival of Silent Cinema. Silent and Black and White of course. The two versions of Blackmail – one silent and one with sound – are equally valid though the sound one seemed to show that the Director and the Actors were only just getting used to speaking on film. There is a scene where a woman who has killed her potential rapist is asked to cut some bread with a knife while a gossip repeats the word “knife” over and over. In the silent version the visual concentration on the knife is enough to reinforce the idea of the stabbing. The repetition of the word seems too unnatural and forced. Still, what would make a good silent film these days? You could start out with some gentle documentary about someone’s life in a day, something which looks good visually but has no need of narrative. Maybe it could even have natural sound rather than music, just no speech. The BBC occasionally shows programmes from a series about children around the world. These seem to be funded as part of an umbrella that allows these gentle dramas to be made and shown on all the participating stations without any preference or prejudice.
This has been a ramble. I can’t get any enthusiasm to continue.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
That Cloud Looks Like Ireland
The Cloudspotter’s Guide seems has been mentioned in several media-type places in the last few days and this article in the Guardian makes me want to read it for sure. The author’s game of “Contemplating the Heavens Below” he has surely nicked from me. We used to hang upside down on the railings of the bridge across a stream near where we lived looking at the clouds below, seeing mostly exotic pacific islands, atolls and strings of palm-shrouded tropical lands. And then there is his Cloud Appreciation Society which I have just joined. I don’t often join much but for £3 who can complain. Bearing in mind that Mr. Preto-Pinney is a co-founder of The Idler it might just be a scam to finance his laid-back life but hey – hello clouds – hello sky – it all helps.
And when I finish Foucault’s Pendulum you know what will be next.
The Cloudspotter’s Guide seems has been mentioned in several media-type places in the last few days and this article in the Guardian makes me want to read it for sure. The author’s game of “Contemplating the Heavens Below” he has surely nicked from me. We used to hang upside down on the railings of the bridge across a stream near where we lived looking at the clouds below, seeing mostly exotic pacific islands, atolls and strings of palm-shrouded tropical lands. And then there is his Cloud Appreciation Society which I have just joined. I don’t often join much but for £3 who can complain. Bearing in mind that Mr. Preto-Pinney is a co-founder of The Idler it might just be a scam to finance his laid-back life but hey – hello clouds – hello sky – it all helps.
And when I finish Foucault’s Pendulum you know what will be next.
