Music For Your Tape Recorder

Here we are, another orbit around the Sun...

I got three CDs in the last six weeks of the year. It's a bit difficult to explain everything between March 2006 and then.

We Love The Winter, It Brings Us Closer Together

The Hearth, Aaron Gustafson, 2006

Between 1986 and 1990, there was me, my cousin, and my brother. For the best part of the decade it was just us three. The Padre's brothers hadn't had any kids yet.

Around 1992 my cousin moved to Florida via Big Blue and later settled in North Carolina. Roughly every second year my aunt, uncle and cousin would come over for Christmas - and occasionally Easter. When we were still kids, it was easy to maintain a relationship, but by the start of this decade it just became too awkward. One year we could all be on a train to Glasgow having a laugh, and the next time it would all be undone. Ironic considering the ways to stay in touch are much better than 15 years ago.

The 'best' Christmases are still the ones when they come over, though. Christmas doesn't feel like an event unless they're over. Isn't it all about seeing people again in the deep of winter? Something has disappeared from the experience. Perhaps it is the excitement that comes with being a kid receiving all the toys you want. In its place the simple joy of being in a family.

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Beyond The Infinite

Screenshot from Space Odyssey, BBC, 2004

By now anyone reading this blog will have composed an eschewed psychological profile of me. Perhaps the most interesting things are happening inside, not out. A reflection of existence once we'd been to the moon and bought the tat.

Among the small assortment of recurring dreams I have, is a particularly adaptive one. The core elements remain static but the circumstances which frame it are always different. In the 'Astronomic' dream some ridiculously large and visible heavenly object rises/sets/appears in the sky. By this point most of the framing has dropped away and I'm concerned with relentlessly photographing it and staring straight at it as my mind melts.

Sometimes it's a spectacular pumpkin Moonrise/set, a gigantic Jupiter hanging on the horizon, or most recently Comet Holmes (which I have yet to see in reality, despite much effort). In the most strange version I was equipped with large binoculars and witnessed the true structure of the universe - which I can reveal is a lattice of red and green pipes not unlike that old screensaver.

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When You Think Your Toys Have Gone Berserk

When I was a toddler, one of my uncles bought me a particular stuffed toy as a birthday or Christmas present. This toy was the eponymous character of a mid-late 80s tv show. I was very fond of this toy and the show.

Vessels

Public domain

Before people worked in offices in the city, all of humanity was tied to the land. Once the beasts of burden were harnessed, humanity started to escape the limits of their own frailty. Across four millennia; the horse pulled the cart, the ox ploughed the field, and the donkey carried a messiah or two. The cereal crops harvested by these agricultural humans could both sustain the farmers and their animals. The humans ate the grain and the animals (both the working ones, and the unemployed ones bred for meat) ate the stalk.

Celebrate

Ah, two years of blogging. Unlike last year's frantic pace, I've slowed down quite a bit this year. Maybe I've cleared a backlog of thoughts or maybe being unemployed just wasn't much to write about. As I said earlier:

Ëçë wëb-sögnäh eþ satewai jaami to alirazdlis.
This blog is as much for me as for whoever reads it.

There's plenty of stories about being a postman, I just haven't got round to writing about it all. Who doesn't want to hear about psychotic dogs, urine-soaked stairwells, and the passionate hate for people and their mail that develops within no time at all?

Pruitt Igoe

Kim Noble (Patricia) - Golden Stretch, 2005

Marching ants scurry to work. Blind ants drowned by rising water and squashed by falling rocks.

Too fragile. Drop it and feel relief. Wound tighter, moving faster, the tension unbearable. Hand-held. Quivering and losing balance. Oh, the fall. I say, you sir, would you please catch us? Pogo till your neck snaps. Cause when the sun goes down...

The Grid

M8 Light Trails, _Gee_, 2006

Man walking South. Man walking North. Walkmen watching watch-hands marching.

Timetables, schedules, cycles, oscillations, repeating life pulsations, looping, circadian rhythms.

Arcing across the roof, bending our necks to follow it. Up, down. Work, sleep. Alarm clock violation. Free running from imposition, announcers detailing. Catch the train, the programme. Some sleep never caught under fluorescent light strips.

Rain Down On All Those Days You're Not Around

throbber85, Home at Last, 2007

High flats keek above low clouds. Metallic screeches emanate from the ocean terminal. Three cranes standing in a row, arms saluting the river. The ambient pulse of traffic and the hiss of drizzle. The cold air soothing sunburn upon exiting the airport. A tanker leans against the flow, a tug strolls past bound in its proud posture. A disused dock does overtime and a thousand call centres cluster around it.

What's missing when you leave? Can't stand the ground further inland. Dreaming of somewhere else even though you'd be miserable not being here being miserable. Being cold isn't a feeling. For some reason, being here is. When the river opens up, you do too.

Extrinsic 7: Someone, Somewhere in Summertime

Yesterday I went parasailing on the boat trip. Was all right, not really a raving review. I've burnt my knees quite red since I forgot to grease-up with Factor 50. As ever, one was enjoying the imagined company of young ladies. There was a girl I thought was German reading her book. I could have serenaded her with a bit of "Ich, Ich bin dann König!/Und du, du Könnigen!" Need I mention any interaction was exclusively in my head? She was as English as the rest of them anyway.

Extrinsic 6: He-La-Hu

Clyfford Still, 1957-D No. 1, 1957

So five minutes ago all hell breaks loose. I've not got my glasses on, people are rushing out of their seats screaming - hysterical women over-reacting. I hear a bang (or something like it), and you can draw your own conclusions from which I had to make my own conclusions in zero to instant, self-preservation kicking into action.

Media exposure to the self-destruction of humanity invokes predetermined scenarios. And half-way through this, I'm informed the two English drunkards are thumping each other again. In the past two days there's been a big increase in the number of people at the hotel what with the English holidays fraying the seams. Unlimited alcohol is a great idea. You can't take the English anywhere.

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Extrinsic 4: Doctorin' The Tardis

When you think Friday Thirteenth, you think of Doctor Who. Naturally. Whilst some barely-related-to-the-theme singalong "classics" were rolled into a "mega mix", I noticed one of the young waitresses standing at the sides watching the show for a few minutes before heading off to gather more empty cups. I don't know how well her English is, or whether she understood what the fuck was going on. I myself had little clue as to what Bohemian Rhapsody had to do with travelling back to 1930s India.

Extrinsic 3: Autosuggestion / It's Coming Home

As evidence against humanity, I cite Thursday night's entertainment. Round One of this "Game Show" involved an entertainer reciting the slogan or catchphrase of a product or business and audience members running onto the stage to name it.

Cogito ergo sum I'm lovin' it!

The dire connectivity of the hotel is compounded by the lack of any quality English-language newspapers. All there is, as ever, are Murdoch-owned kidznewz or imitations thereof. A single star outshone by a billion little lightbulbs that blink. The one decent publication is the copy of Private Eye I bought back in Glasgow.

Cogito ergo sum We love it!

The "entertainment" as I speak consists of having a bunch of sassenachs imitate some Scots sayings and activities: namely caber tossing, and saying something like 'Och aye the noo!'. If I see another England flag tatooed or emblazoned across a beachtowel...

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Extrinsic 2: Bit Shifter

I've ditched the PDA. The only reason the batteries last is because a button cell can happily keep the CMOS ticking over. I'd really need to get a modern Lithium powered one.

I'm reading Neuromancer and much like Case, I dream of being back in cyberspace - as with any disconnected drone.

Extrinsic 1: Which is a Building, Which is on Fire

Venus Above Her Birthplace, Prij, 08/07/07 20:43 EEST

Having boarded and seen the leather seats, I was hoping the space between them might just have increased. If anything, they've crammed more into the same space. My brother points out that the brace position is difficult to adopt. As is sitting at a minutely different angle. I tried to see the bright side, Para.

As Glasgow is my local airport, I was expecting to see some damage from last week's incident. But there was nothing visible. However... increased security checks, and armed police, and the Kafkaesque nonsense going through the x-ray machines. I already had to remove my belt in the line, I just walked through without removing my trainers. I suppose three armed guards standing in the one place covers the need for cattleprods.

The sun has set beyond Aphrodite beach and it really is a spectacular view - Venus riding above an infinitely deep crimson curtain. Now that I've got a 512mb card for the camera, it's time to go insane with exposure modes.

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I've Got Plenty of Java and Chesterfield Kings, But I Feel Like Crying. I Wish I Had a Heart of Ice

In the Venusberg, John Collier, 1901

Time was I would get preoccupied trying to recall the rest of a dream from the one segment that popped into my mind in the mornings. It finally prompted me to start writing them down while I could remember them - mostly because some were quite entertaining or deeply fascinating. Then there's the black dogs which sit on my shoulder all day.

I imagine exiles dream of home but wake up with the same feeling. Her face fades under the inertia of time. Just the name is enough to bring the feeling back for a few minutes of rapid eye movement. Eventually, as always, I wake up with that elated feeling in my chest which within seconds veers to obliteration of the soul as reality thumps me square in the heart.

Probably explains why almost all songs are about it. Call me Deacon Blues.

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Blue Light

The Gloaming (Awful Paintbrush Splice), Prij, 2007

I'm using my favourite little gadget to write this. The Padre uncovered it in an office spring-cleaning at IBM. It's a 1999 Palm III branded as an IBM WorkPad - very basic compared to any new PDA. Unfortunately I'm without the data cable and the PC doesn't have an IR sensor (which I was sure it it did). The WorkPad will be replacing the tonne of paper notes that are strewn throughout my room. It's also how I'll be writing whilst in Cyprus next week, and any time I'm away from the computer from now-on. Although I'm a little apprehensive about relying on AAAs and only a minute of backup power. Might turn out to be easier and less stressful to just use paper.

But I Might Never Reach You

"Wrujatou wëb-sögnëh tulanou wrujatifou prajatai, sib smestes röitëëdëjou wräkëšä aþ anemdeizafou nahasai. Ëçë wëb-sögnäh eþ satewai jaami to alirazdlis. Wraajatou Letlavo, sulu saaþefou łafetai ta mërzëh whëb-sögnäh age řodavou þörptysën jaami o çonajou teimi smëstëh välëjai. Sib añereizdalou ëçë."

Maybe that's already apparent. Anyways, catch-up with my happenings next week when I don't have to get up at 0420 for overtime.

Art Decade

World War II in Colour

The way that the Nazis staged themselves and presented themselves, my Lord! I'm talking about the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer and the mass marches and the flags. Just fantastic - really beautiful.

I agree with Ferry's remarks. He's an art student, not a fucking nazi-sympathiser. We're talking about mid-20th century art and architecture. Perhaps for some it's hard to separate image from history. After all, this was the same period of history in which the greatest act of cruelty inflicted on humanself occurred.

I Was Your Fortress You Had To Burn

Picasso, self-portrait (Picasso With Cloak), 1901

As I wrote last July, a lot of my dreams are set in places I haven't been for a long time: primary school, secondary school, and my old house. There may be a subconscious reason for that.

I lived in that fairly-large house from 1991 to July 2000: that's from the age of 5 to 14. Physiologically, that a lot of growing-up. But also consider how a person's personality can change. By the time I had moved into the house I currently reside, I was two weeks into third year.

In plain terms, I was never particularly happy in primary school. From Primary 5 onwards I had a good run of teachers - Mrs Cameron, Ms MacKenzie (maiden name for first few months, although I can't remember what it changed to), and Mrs Fortune - and through those improved last three years I started to become less introverted.

The Garden

Hasegawa Tohaku, The Pinewood (Right Screen), 15xx

Unlike last year, there has been no low. The weather has been good and consistent - until, of course, I drafted this. I'm the James Dean of the dole queue and I am perfectly content. Except for this persistent writing-block, which has reduced me to forcing a post a month. For some the year crawls, I almost experienced two Fridays in a row. As the days grow longer, I await summer with excitement.

Maybe Misery / Faster / Of All The Things We've Made

Screenshot from Der Untergang, 2004

You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.


My mind oft races at night. For your consideration.

Take Five

Abstract Composition, Edward Wadsworth, 1915

I've taken some time out from writing. I have the time and the material, but have been unable to write. The same trouble I had at the start of November. There are 20 or so posts stretching from last week to August which lie incomplete. I've put aside B-17: The Mighty 8th, and made a concentrated effort to write. So far, I've only rewrote the sentences above this.

Three things have occupied my time through January: the £100 worth of DVDs I bought on Amazon, visiting the job centre every second Tuesday, and going to job interviews.

Staring at The Sky, Staring at The Sun

Foggy Sunrise (#2 of 4, Resized), 01/07/06 0209 UTC

Having extensively revisited my old language project in November, I started writing in the language to see and hear the "finished" product. I wrote a complex sentence describing this.
At the same time I was listening to Vangelis' The City - the last sentence reflects the opening track. I'll try and upload the language support materials whenever they get up to standard. Make sure you have UTF-8 on.

Hau-Canja Naiša

Ruwsaibatkan mërgäzë n Nhökën

Gëlsän šäjwävrën, räslän hektren

Hëšräh volanejou vähfön

Ŵajšan šolerou sjirövlën

Ta xiraga airöwysou

[out of date, IPA removed]