rhyme & reason

Despite the duff ear, my love of Radio 3 is waxing. I may even have to get a t-shirt made.

Recently, the Beeb have improved their iPlayer site and now users can select their favourite shows so these shows are ready and waiting as soon as you enter the site. (Unfortunately, my overseas buddies might not be able to access the shows - which is a pity - but fair, I suppose, as BBC content is funded by UK taxpayers).

I have discovered another gem of theirs, Words & Music. I've avoided it until now because it sounded dry and up itself. Basically, it's a mix of spoken word and music selected for a theme. I feel a bit short changed on the music, it's often only a clip, but the words are the thing, a reading from a novel, or a piece of poetry. It's a wonderful way for a relative illiterate like me to hear poetry and I wonder how it would work on my mp3 player, randomly selected in shuffle mode. I might acquire a few clips and find out.

I was quite taken by the poem, Machines, by Michael Donaghy. It was read on the show by an actor from the Archers (a chronic radio soap where nothing discernible happens to a community of farrrmers) but I discovered that Donaghy was happy to perform his own work in his time and so here he is performing Machines.

My Ear Deceives Me

I've got this ear. Recently, it's developed a condition which I believe falls into the ETD category. Eustachian tube disorder, which sounds like something the transport workers' trade union might organise for commutors north of Watford. It's also given me glue ear which I can't shift.

Googling for remedies, I read that dairy products may make matters worse by increasing mucus output so in an effort to reduce dairy I thought I'd try substituting rice milk. On its own, I found it tastes like regular milk that's ever so slightly on the turn and with a spoonful of sugar added. It's not too bad if you like yoghurt and stuff, which I do.

However, it doesn't really mix with other foods like milk does. First, I tried making porridge. The result neither looked like porridge nor tasted at all pleasant. Secondly, I added it to my morning coffee. This proved worse: it totally failed to complement the bitterness with the usual creamy smoothness I look for, but it did give it added sweetness. That would be fine if I took sugar in my coffee - I could add fewer spoonfuls - but I don't.

Luckily, I've been taking my Redbush tea black for some time. I'll try the soya milk next but I won't get my hopes up.

a borrower be

Support your local library. Before they cut it.

Even though our numbers are falling, I'm proud to be in that number. I've found a new use for my membership - CD rentals(and I've also spied some interesting foreign films on the racks). For £1 a week (or just 50p if returned within 24hours) I borrowed a copy of Tuesday Wonderland, by Esbjorn Svensson Trio. I've been listening to it at work. Wonderful, even though it's not Tuesday. This band has often been cited as the future of Jazz, or Europe's best Jazz group. But I'm sad that I shall never get to see them when I consumate my new found love affair with Scandinavia. Esbjorn died in 2008, aged 44, whilst scuba diving.

Also from the library, I'm currently into the Best of McSweeney's Vol. 2. A collection of modern American short stories. So far these have been fabulous little gems; some mysterious (think Twilight Zone) and some very funny. The McSweeney's website also looks fun, but not intuitively explorable. At least I'm struggling, but I'm specifically trying to find the stories and there's nothing to say there are any. There's a page of lists though, some of which are quite funny.

Also this week, and not a long bus ride from the spirit of McSweeney's is the brand new culture superblog, The Dabbler. Today's post is from Frank Keys, (Hooting Yard) on the poem, Jubilate Agno, by Christopher Smart (1722-1771 ). Essentially it's a list pairing a biblical hero with a named critter, some familiar, some absurd, so that hero can praise God with said beast. It's a shocking three hours long but you can hear it all here. It's worth at least a quarter of an hour. I put in about 20 minutes and then fast-forwarded - I think it's safe to say the best bit is at the beginning.

I think that's all. Back to E.S.T....

Mrs. Schrödinger goes for a stroll

The video says it all.



Or does it?

It's disturbing the amount of CCTV there is about. Now I don't wish to draw fatuous comparison's with Orwell's 1984 but when I read that book in my youth, and got to the part where the sweethearts thought they'd escaped the prying eyes of state only to find microphones hidden in the hedgerows, I thought, how awful! And all the things I got up to as a kid, unobserved.

tick-tock

For about a couple of years between my late teens and mid twenties I never carried a watch. I don't remember whether my old watch broke or was lost but I didn't have enough enthusiasm to shop for a replacement. Then I found I could get along fine without one. Generally, I'd work out the time to the nearest hour intuitively, and if on rarer occasions I needed more accurate time I'd simply seek out a clock or the kindness of strangers.

The reason I think of this now is because I've just read an article in response to old news that using technology makes you stupid. The article refutes the claim though I wasn't convinced, and I wonder how my life would be without media technology (gratuitous use thereof, obviously. I'm not suggesting that if ever I should face a life-threatening situation where safety required the assistance of technology, I should decline it on principle). It's safe to say, I think, that certain tasks seemed more meaningful before technology saved time and labour. And made us stupid because now any fool can do it, can't they?

These days I'm a watch wearing conformist, but every once in a while, I try to tell, not guess, the time of day intuitively. Rarely am I out by more than half an hour, more frequently correct within a quarter of an hour. I ask you, how accurate do we need to be?

stickmen at atom

Over at the opposite end of the spectrum from BFI resides Atom Films. I'm not sure where Atom Films' films come from - country of origin, pro or am, small or big time - but they're certainly and consistently well-polished works; a cut above average youtube fare. Having said that, I remember them when they used to be better. Oh well, I expect someone at Atom had to do a necessary exercise in ''progress''.

Yesterday, I saw a clip for a programme which featured an aged writer who I didn't recognise saying something about all stories being essentially about death. That's funny, and very reassuring, because up until then I thought I must be developing a peculiar taste in literature - everyone seemed to be, whether literally or metaphorically, dying.

Is animation dead, and the wonder of it dying? Technology guilty, murder one? Here's a ghost of cartoon past,

Stickman Exodus
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

on understanding art

Apparently, Robert Frost on being asked what one of his poems meant, replied;

“You want me to say it worse?”

I can imagine it. Wonderful.

sex

This is not a purse.

I haven't explored it yet - I'm at work! - but already I like its style.

(Don't worry, I believe it's - ahem - intellectual).

tom dick and bfi

Taking a few days off, tom-dick, right now. It's been a long time since I last had sick leave, and I think it must apply to the whole country because, in that time, the afternoon telly has been neglected and, as a result, become unbelievably crap. I was hoping for a good, old-fashioned and classic film to take my mind off my chills and fever but instead got an endless series of programmes featuring estate agents showing vacant couples around vacant houses.

I had some time ago collected a link to the online British Film Institute and they have uploaded some ''curiosities'' from their archives on to BFI-Youtube. I hadn't realised this runs as a playlist, so by selecting one clip I ended up watching a concoction of weird and unrelated historical film clips for about an hour before I felt overloaded. Still, it was better than watching estate agents.

I'm feeling much better, by the way. Back to normal next week.

moneyless artist

It just struck me, the Moneyless Man is the Hunger Artist.

I bet someone's taking bets - one mown lawn to ten apples he makes it to four & twenty months.

4-1

On this day, England lost too convincingly to the youngest Germany of all time. You know, I have some German ancestry somewhere...about three generations back...

No, damn-it, I'm English! More so than football is, I think. They, naturally, should be made to practice their archery.

the naming of things

I see the Guardian is holding a competition to give names to endangered bugs and plants so rare they're only known by scientists who speak of them in Latin. It would be a nice idea but I haven't caught up with the names of all the non-endangered critters yet! Time's running out for us all...

camera

I have a new camera, and I don't know what to do with it. It's to replace two cameras I have. That makes four cameras in all. Two of which have never been used: this new one and a 35mm one the insurance company gave me after I washed my Pentax inside a duty-free carrier bag with two bottles of Italian red. It was well and truly obsolete by that time and I never could find love for the replacement model they sent.

Anyway, enough of this crap.

Isn't this photograph wonderful! It's by Becky Vigor, The Art of Zinkibaru. (We've met before but I found her this time using 'next blog', starting at Ellis Nadler...)

the chair: an idea

In quiet moments I'll sometimes click on the next blog link on the blogger bar above. I don't do it from here. I do it from Ellis Nadler's blog because I've been doing it for a while and starting from his blog normally gives more interesting results than others, no doubt by content association. Often I thought I ought to post some of the interesting blogs I've found by this method but I'm lazy, and people should do their own lokking, and if anyone really wants to know, I hide them in the link mosaic at the end of the sidebar.

Anyway, I found Galen's Manspace and I'm intrigued by his vertical marble roller (I wish there was a video). I love machines, and I love art, so what's not to like with a vertical marble roller.

I wish I had the time to develop this idea along my own lines. Two things came to mind; there must be a visual and an audible element to this which can be separated. the idea I have is for a chair - credit to my blog mate Steve for this post - incorporating a marble roller. The first device, a helter-skelter, would wrap itself around the sitter's head thus, if the sitter closed their eyes, they would hear the sound passing around their head. The second device comprises a wall, not unlike the one in the contemplation chair, but constructed from marble rollers. There would need to be some random element in the way the marbles were released but I feel the effect will either be infuriating or relaxing, and I don't mind which.

tempus fugit

Man, it's been awhile. Tempus fugit. So, an update in brief;

I'm reading the Guardian more these days, online. Not as good as the minds found in The Times but at least it's free, and there's more Environment news-views. I have it on a handy feed. I'm liking this guy recently, John Crace. Funny.

Like Goldilocks and the porridge: neither heavy, nor lightweight. I agree with Nick. I'm voting Lib-Dem.

Life drawing was cancelled this term due to lack of interest. D'oh! But I have a new camera!, the G11. Sounds more like a meeting of elite nations; not as catchy as the Ixus which it's replacing. Not as compact either but less weighty than the Brick of Eos. I hope it fits my requirements better than either.

Shall I resurrect my art blog?

Watched James Lovelock on Beautiful Minds through yesterday's lunch hour. Easily as good as Satish Kumar on Natural World (of which I have a DVD). If I could only choose one televisual channel, I think it might be BBC Four.

Allotment is going fine. This year we're experimenting with no-dig (well, min-dig, really. I can't resist the odd fork over). It feels so natural this time around; am I becoming an old hand at it, perhaps?

END

more death, only slower, and more free easels

Further insight into The Book About Death yields this, a less hurried way of looking.

Also, you may be pleased to know that I contacted Winsor & Newton about my missing easel parts and, following two weeks of pleasant email ping-pong to establish exactly which bits were missing, they posted the missing parts, absolutely free. Now, you can't say fairer than that. My thanks to Alison at W&N.

I iGoogle.

It saves time, sometimes.
You never know what it might turn up.
Wiki-How is a feed.

How to Live with a Perfectionist
(do they mean me?)

How to be Active Before Work
(steady on, now!)

the funny thing was the image that greets you on the perfectionist page (see right), well, I'm sure it's by fellow Moleskine Exchanger Mike Kline! Small world.

barking

The remarkable thing about Percy Edwards was his ability to mimic animal noises convincingly. Accurate enough for the film industry to regularly employ him to overdub sound effects for countless movies over three decades. If this ability wasn’t special, no doubt he would have passed away in relative obscurity. He could have been the exception which proves the rule: why keep a dog and bark yourself?

The smartest riposte I heard a colleague give to a meddling architect was; Please allow me to know my job.

iRack

It's high time I signed off my Mortuary Corners...

Crumbs

Chicks Don't Dig Collectors

Ah-ha. Interestingly, he makes the case for connoisseurs over mere collectors. I think this probably just indicates a wealthier bunch of collectors and the difference between mindless and madness.

Previously...