I was just doing a bit of scribbling, long time since, and I wondered that what I’m doing is poetry, because I’m making a fictional world out of fact. I’m not ‘making things up’. I’m not into fabrication, fake worlds, dreamy realities, alternative outcomes, I’m into here now me, I’m doing this and it is affecting me, now, here, and I’m not making things up, and this is where the passion and ache lies, and I want you to see it the way I don't even know yet.
It comes from somewhere I can't even fathom. It lies in the same place that she riffed from, with a jazz backing, making my sore itchy-ill hands clap like they had no shame, shouting from the back with praise that I wanted to be heard but kind of not too as she was a little fearful. I listened to her lyrical virtuosity, ploughing at speed through personal and historical reference with an honest delicacy and burning yearning. She's digging to that unknown that I love, her own, and it chimes and calls out to mine.
Within minutes of this gig, if you can call it that, I wasn't so ill anymore. I had laughs and smiles. It glowed, what’s missing when I'm ill? Humour, rhythm, base emotions that makes an animal a human, things that attach the body and the mind and hold the soul up. These unknown crucialities that keep us sane, that when we stifle them, think we can command them, stop listening to the Sage or whatever, double-back and poison us.
When she had said about the brain being a a cool function, when Ruby Wax was talking about neuroscience, I made the mistake of thinking that understanding the functionality made it comprehensible. Er, no. It doesn't work this way. You'll never know the root of everything, the where what why is this happening, so just get on with discovering the unknown. It is timely to reflect on what you know to be right for you, and what is on offer. It's not about risks, but like an explorer setting off with a map, plans and knowledge. Go.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
Held up
You don't look like you've got a cold, she said, when I have cold I look terrible. I tried to explain the cold was two days ago, now it's chest-ways, the bit where it can get me and I have to call the ambulance while he just lies there passed out. Another story. My physiognomy hides it well, but I'm actually concentrating very hard, I'm a slave to the virus, my lungs are broke, I'm out of control.
Yesterday I was fine enough to get a haircut and drink whisky, today I woke up with a paltry whimper knowing I had to call in sick, but I also had to wait a few hours as it was only 5am. Sad pathetic lonely whimper. Nothing like an illness to smash your independence down to size. Dependence, someone to hang on, someone to remind you you're alive and rub your back and buy you caramel digestives, that's what an ill thing needs.
I'm angry now. I've missed two days of work, and a weekend of bank holiday revels will no doubt have to slide. I'm deeply sad about that, I didn't want to put life on hold, look how exciting it was, is, look, look at my plans and designs. Why is it fair that I'm separate from what I want? Then I think back to Sunday, Monday. A hanging dread of change where the colourful bits were blurs and I was looking for extraneous light.
Being ill, a time to slow down. A time to be angry at your body, see it communicating with your mind, see it lighting your soul. They're all connected, but it's easy to let the mind think it's the thing. It makes me appreciate things, that my eyes mostly sparkle, my feet have a rhythm, and words are (hopefully) a lot more inspired by these ones. Maybe the recalibration needed a physical jar, to jolt everything into step. I know I'm not well when I'm neither laughing or twirling, physical outcomes married from the mind and soul in a happy accident.
Yesterday I was fine enough to get a haircut and drink whisky, today I woke up with a paltry whimper knowing I had to call in sick, but I also had to wait a few hours as it was only 5am. Sad pathetic lonely whimper. Nothing like an illness to smash your independence down to size. Dependence, someone to hang on, someone to remind you you're alive and rub your back and buy you caramel digestives, that's what an ill thing needs.
I'm angry now. I've missed two days of work, and a weekend of bank holiday revels will no doubt have to slide. I'm deeply sad about that, I didn't want to put life on hold, look how exciting it was, is, look, look at my plans and designs. Why is it fair that I'm separate from what I want? Then I think back to Sunday, Monday. A hanging dread of change where the colourful bits were blurs and I was looking for extraneous light.
Being ill, a time to slow down. A time to be angry at your body, see it communicating with your mind, see it lighting your soul. They're all connected, but it's easy to let the mind think it's the thing. It makes me appreciate things, that my eyes mostly sparkle, my feet have a rhythm, and words are (hopefully) a lot more inspired by these ones. Maybe the recalibration needed a physical jar, to jolt everything into step. I know I'm not well when I'm neither laughing or twirling, physical outcomes married from the mind and soul in a happy accident.
Monday, 16 August 2010
Dancing
Consciousness, so hot right now. It seems I can't open a newspaper, browse a listings guide, walk through my day without thinking about that gap between my brain and my skull, some soul space, where I become me. It's grinding against itself, sometimes parched and scratchy, sometimes wet and lubricated, swizzles round on an non-axis, and I'm not sure I'm awake, I'm me, I'm alive, I'm alive I am.
I did a hell of a lot of dancing this weekend. I had the most fun I had in a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed her rumours?, not really rumours, of me 'being a dancer'. I enjoyed my definition based on passion, rather than my contracted hourly rate. I got lost, watching some lovely gay boys watching me and some girls and most of the public all over him and his lasciviousness. A good contrast. The brushed voice of a wholesome woman in furs, rolled in and out of bed the same, she said, smacking a compliment on me with that amazing Wig-un accent. So real, I wish I was her.
A lot of dressing up. I'm concerned, in general, that I don't sit tight anywhere. I don't have a niche a place a style a crowd a language a decade a collective a real solid mass of existence. One minute it's six count, next I'm all northern, a restrained tea frame, a wild thing, and I'm all, I'm loving all without a lie. But what am I? What Am I says the Science Museum poster. See, it's everywhere. Neurons, pathways, excuses and explanations, it's like we're boiling down our problems to a cool point. She said she lost her mysticism. I was kind of saddened. She'd done that cool thing, separated the body and soul.
I told him how I thought it was dangerous that one can just get lost in the dancing. I remembered that period when it took three classes a week just to blur my present, a survival style. Then it came to the time when I was sitting around the dance floor aching to read my book, get into my head, having to forget myself at the wrong time was incredibly frustrating. But it helped me change. It's happening again now. My reality is switched around me and I'm looking for new markers. But this time round, it's fun. I'm wrapping my lost consciousness up in hops and spins.
I did a hell of a lot of dancing this weekend. I had the most fun I had in a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed her rumours?, not really rumours, of me 'being a dancer'. I enjoyed my definition based on passion, rather than my contracted hourly rate. I got lost, watching some lovely gay boys watching me and some girls and most of the public all over him and his lasciviousness. A good contrast. The brushed voice of a wholesome woman in furs, rolled in and out of bed the same, she said, smacking a compliment on me with that amazing Wig-un accent. So real, I wish I was her.
A lot of dressing up. I'm concerned, in general, that I don't sit tight anywhere. I don't have a niche a place a style a crowd a language a decade a collective a real solid mass of existence. One minute it's six count, next I'm all northern, a restrained tea frame, a wild thing, and I'm all, I'm loving all without a lie. But what am I? What Am I says the Science Museum poster. See, it's everywhere. Neurons, pathways, excuses and explanations, it's like we're boiling down our problems to a cool point. She said she lost her mysticism. I was kind of saddened. She'd done that cool thing, separated the body and soul.
I told him how I thought it was dangerous that one can just get lost in the dancing. I remembered that period when it took three classes a week just to blur my present, a survival style. Then it came to the time when I was sitting around the dance floor aching to read my book, get into my head, having to forget myself at the wrong time was incredibly frustrating. But it helped me change. It's happening again now. My reality is switched around me and I'm looking for new markers. But this time round, it's fun. I'm wrapping my lost consciousness up in hops and spins.
Monday, 9 August 2010
Chance
There was a sentence in the wall text at the Tillmans, which described his process as a sort of engineering of chance and consideration. We spent quite a lot of time chatting in there, reasoning it, pitting aesthetic against obsession, looking for longer. Well she reasoned and I alluded, slightly surprised at my thought processes, almost feeling these dormant areas light up in my brain. They want to be lit, but are extremely rusty, leaving me listening, silently computing at times I should be talking.
There was a bit in the film, where Larry David is addressing the camera at the end, about how the presence of chance in our lives has so much more weight than we would ever like to believe. Several bits of the film drop how the universe is drifting away from itself, and there's a bit where the Melody character is having a natter about entropy, which is really annoying. But after sitting through it, enduring this film, that bit sat well about the chance.
There is a bit coming up shortly on the radio, about The Flavour Thesaurus. It's on my Wish List, I've browsed it in Foyles, I was thinking about it cooking last night, the pairings and food rules, searching for a clue about cauliflower. I haven't listened to Woman's Hour in at least a month, but today, I slept in ten hours, sat back in bed, and checked the schedule online. Exactly what I want. It was chance delivered.
I got the train to Edinburgh last Saturday. I'd talked about the paper on the bench with the strangers, trying not to comment on his Rapha pinking as I felt her burning slightly at me. How is it today, is it worth it, I don't usually buy it as post work it's expired and almost Sunday. Anyway, I decided to buy it, always feels like a slight gamble queuing in WH Smiths, trying to ignore the Dairy Milk. I'm giving up book time and tea money to a pack of potential that sometimes falls flat.
But today, I was lucky. Smack bang on the front of the Review is a well-informed, well written feature about literary crossover events, replete with a photo from the Zadie Smith Bookslam that I missed because of my concussion, and write up from the Homework I'd been to that same week. I'd only seen the poetry at Latitude because I was meandering by myself after not managing to meet the School girls, only asked him about shows because I bought his book and only bought his book because I sat in the tent at the right time.
Perhaps it's just I live in London, bound forever to be an ultimate trend filter, a future cultural icon, he joshed with a sting. But still, I hadn't bought the paper since before I last heard Woman's Hour. The chances? It makes me want to buy the paper next Saturday, today, just to spite the chance and prove I will always find the right thing, no matter how delicate I am with universal return. Anyway, the point might be, just keep calm, and wait for these things that spark. Tick for the Taste Tours. Abandon myself to the ether.
I thought I had abandoned the blog for a more refined outcome. I felt like writing today. I will be here less often as my words go off to different schools.
There was a bit in the film, where Larry David is addressing the camera at the end, about how the presence of chance in our lives has so much more weight than we would ever like to believe. Several bits of the film drop how the universe is drifting away from itself, and there's a bit where the Melody character is having a natter about entropy, which is really annoying. But after sitting through it, enduring this film, that bit sat well about the chance.
There is a bit coming up shortly on the radio, about The Flavour Thesaurus. It's on my Wish List, I've browsed it in Foyles, I was thinking about it cooking last night, the pairings and food rules, searching for a clue about cauliflower. I haven't listened to Woman's Hour in at least a month, but today, I slept in ten hours, sat back in bed, and checked the schedule online. Exactly what I want. It was chance delivered.
I got the train to Edinburgh last Saturday. I'd talked about the paper on the bench with the strangers, trying not to comment on his Rapha pinking as I felt her burning slightly at me. How is it today, is it worth it, I don't usually buy it as post work it's expired and almost Sunday. Anyway, I decided to buy it, always feels like a slight gamble queuing in WH Smiths, trying to ignore the Dairy Milk. I'm giving up book time and tea money to a pack of potential that sometimes falls flat.
But today, I was lucky. Smack bang on the front of the Review is a well-informed, well written feature about literary crossover events, replete with a photo from the Zadie Smith Bookslam that I missed because of my concussion, and write up from the Homework I'd been to that same week. I'd only seen the poetry at Latitude because I was meandering by myself after not managing to meet the School girls, only asked him about shows because I bought his book and only bought his book because I sat in the tent at the right time.
Perhaps it's just I live in London, bound forever to be an ultimate trend filter, a future cultural icon, he joshed with a sting. But still, I hadn't bought the paper since before I last heard Woman's Hour. The chances? It makes me want to buy the paper next Saturday, today, just to spite the chance and prove I will always find the right thing, no matter how delicate I am with universal return. Anyway, the point might be, just keep calm, and wait for these things that spark. Tick for the Taste Tours. Abandon myself to the ether.
I thought I had abandoned the blog for a more refined outcome. I felt like writing today. I will be here less often as my words go off to different schools.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Forty two
We met at the lights, he a sharp turn right across my onwards to catch my gaze at the turn of the green. Party, on a Monday? Oh yeah you're a free one, Mondays mean anydays and whatever sleeps you like. I told him I didn't fancy it, going home to have a think. Going home to have a think? Like I've got something to say on that matter, something to wonder and believe in? What happened? It was a pretty regular day, though I am rather enjoying my reborn swimming hobby. Water seems important, the sun something else.
So yes works a test, boring, and now it's fucking hot to boot and I'm making really really basic adding up mistakes. And getting angry at the cute flat white who just ripped his other ankle tendon, sorry, sorry, I think you're cute and your son leaves biscuits in your pockets and I do that too and I'm just not sure what drink you're asking me for. He apologised over and again, fetched his odd drinks, apologised again. A peppered real thing in the length of a show day. A guy who 'works for the conservatives' wanted to work here just cus we looked cool. Maybe he was right last night, it is a bit of a golden ticket.
I'm torn. I'm so so torn. One day I'm going to pack it all in and move to San Fransisco, the next I'm just putting in a mezzanine please, the next I'm seeing a room in a homely home, and suddenly googling Laban courses. Er, where is my motivation? Something, I don't know what, something dark and pongy lured me into Mysteries, a shop I've managed to avoid for almost two years. I browsed the divination books and went swimming. After lengths of weighing up the pros and implications of a tarot reading with Tanalise or whoever, luck (er?) was it that she'd knocked off for the day. I left with an i ching book to go with my spinach and ricotta roll.
I love the secret park. I'm not going to name it because I don't want you to go there. I sat on the wooden bench as though in a glade, throwing three ten p's on pastry bags in some ridiculously spiritual manner. Suddenly I was nervous. He saw me at the lights, cut across me to catch my attention, I swerved left. What have you been up to, he asked, philosophy class on the meaning of life, I said. Forty two, he replied. Really, I amazed, sounding sarcastic and false. I wondered at the coincidence of it being my first ever i ching reading, the counter reading of my progression at this stage being 21. My change is equal to half the meaning of life. Hmmmm. Absurd.
So yes works a test, boring, and now it's fucking hot to boot and I'm making really really basic adding up mistakes. And getting angry at the cute flat white who just ripped his other ankle tendon, sorry, sorry, I think you're cute and your son leaves biscuits in your pockets and I do that too and I'm just not sure what drink you're asking me for. He apologised over and again, fetched his odd drinks, apologised again. A peppered real thing in the length of a show day. A guy who 'works for the conservatives' wanted to work here just cus we looked cool. Maybe he was right last night, it is a bit of a golden ticket.
I'm torn. I'm so so torn. One day I'm going to pack it all in and move to San Fransisco, the next I'm just putting in a mezzanine please, the next I'm seeing a room in a homely home, and suddenly googling Laban courses. Er, where is my motivation? Something, I don't know what, something dark and pongy lured me into Mysteries, a shop I've managed to avoid for almost two years. I browsed the divination books and went swimming. After lengths of weighing up the pros and implications of a tarot reading with Tanalise or whoever, luck (er?) was it that she'd knocked off for the day. I left with an i ching book to go with my spinach and ricotta roll.
I love the secret park. I'm not going to name it because I don't want you to go there. I sat on the wooden bench as though in a glade, throwing three ten p's on pastry bags in some ridiculously spiritual manner. Suddenly I was nervous. He saw me at the lights, cut across me to catch my attention, I swerved left. What have you been up to, he asked, philosophy class on the meaning of life, I said. Forty two, he replied. Really, I amazed, sounding sarcastic and false. I wondered at the coincidence of it being my first ever i ching reading, the counter reading of my progression at this stage being 21. My change is equal to half the meaning of life. Hmmmm. Absurd.
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Little white skirt
So I kind of fell out with dancing today. Not sure how I feel about this. I stood there, watching sweaty backs and faux couples, just feeling a bit flat about the whole thing. The music was a bit generic or something. What are you doing, he initiated, as I missed steps for the fifth or so time. I'm tired, I laughed though it wasn't a joke. I span too much and failed to cover up my disinterest. I was thinking about boys.
Two days in a row I have had opportunities that I didn't quite take. The words weren't there, the preempted conversations destined never to happen in the right place at the right time. I'm working, I'm two lattes and two black americanos, making great milk, have you got any shows coming up, changing this bin bag, do you want cocoa on the cappuccino, putting stuff in the dishwasher, are you going to the party on Wednesday, maybe we should swap numbers. I'm not myself but I'm most myself.
I shrieked numerous times, the shriek I was told off for at Coffee Union. Everyone got a bit Wednesday loose. A couple on table six looked straight at me for too long, despite not wanting me professionally, as though our acts were offensive and too conscious. Too loose, like we were all testing our bored versions, seeing at what point they bent or broke, at what point we stopped believing in anything we were saying, doing, making. Of course we still believed in the coffee.
The dancing felt transparent and excessive after talking, being, all day. I saw the physical actions and just wanted to be at home writing or reading my book. The physical and mental seem to be leveling out, finally. I decided it was time to go home when the kind older man with glasses, tonight sporting some horrific eye injury-come-operation, told me I looked like I was going to get picked up. Picked up, I thought, I didn't fall, I'm just changing my shoes. Or, maybe this cute white denim mini did me more right than the unrealised conversations could ever have done.
Two days in a row I have had opportunities that I didn't quite take. The words weren't there, the preempted conversations destined never to happen in the right place at the right time. I'm working, I'm two lattes and two black americanos, making great milk, have you got any shows coming up, changing this bin bag, do you want cocoa on the cappuccino, putting stuff in the dishwasher, are you going to the party on Wednesday, maybe we should swap numbers. I'm not myself but I'm most myself.
I shrieked numerous times, the shriek I was told off for at Coffee Union. Everyone got a bit Wednesday loose. A couple on table six looked straight at me for too long, despite not wanting me professionally, as though our acts were offensive and too conscious. Too loose, like we were all testing our bored versions, seeing at what point they bent or broke, at what point we stopped believing in anything we were saying, doing, making. Of course we still believed in the coffee.
The dancing felt transparent and excessive after talking, being, all day. I saw the physical actions and just wanted to be at home writing or reading my book. The physical and mental seem to be leveling out, finally. I decided it was time to go home when the kind older man with glasses, tonight sporting some horrific eye injury-come-operation, told me I looked like I was going to get picked up. Picked up, I thought, I didn't fall, I'm just changing my shoes. Or, maybe this cute white denim mini did me more right than the unrealised conversations could ever have done.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Dreams
The past two days I've been thinking about dying. A lot. Like the literal lack of oxygen in the place has made me feel like I could be dying. Could my lack of enthusiasm for being, coupled with the physical environment, actually cause my heart to just, stop. I thought it could. Jolt, jolt myself into seeing I'm alive, I'm here, if I was to die now, now, is that, that, the last thing I'd have wanted to be, to feel to exist as.
Sad thing is, not even those thoughts were enough to breathe life into me. It's been fairly grim these past two days. I put it obviously down to my one-day weekend. Not into them, not used to them, and do not see the civility in them at all. I was glad she was in today, told her so. Like I need a fellow dissenter, someone who will just flatly tell the truth of the travesty and drop the act. I swore a lot today. I felt angry a lot. My dancing around others' hermeneutics was really really staid. I'm not dancing around you today, so yes why don't you just fuck off out the shop as I'm answering your question, YES THE BAKED GOODS DO HAVE DAIRY IS THAT HOW YOU'VE BEEN BROUGHT UP.
I met the most beautiful man at the lights. Well we didn't meet, you know, he was turning right. But we bike checked, those fine leather grips and a tidy red frame, some Toms and a Waitrose Foodhall. I looked behind me, ready to shout over if no other cyclists were to bare it's witness. There weren't any. Now's the time, he's turning right. Nice bike, I said, nice glasses he said, nice beard I said, only I didn't because I was tired and off and reeked of the day. He looked over again. Really. Fuck. The lights changed, he turned right. I tutted and shook my head, tears within the mile.
I'm frustrated because I sparked the other day. And now, the double life of having to close off those thoughts, temper them as they don't pay, coffee pays, thoughts don't pay, so ssshh. And my head says, no, no, er, no, stop thinking about these sparks for even minutes and they'll go again, disappear, these precious things. I want them to breathe but there's no oxygen, and I'm thinking I could die. Like them. On Friday, I had a few amazing exchanges on only 3 beers, the resonance of my twisted Theodore Zeldin quotation, the best conversations being where you say things you've never even thought before.
I can think, can I? You can understand me, can you? We are, conversing? We're talking about ideas and this bizarre space we are making, together, for these concepts is almost real. I'm thinking. I'm saying things I've never thought before. I'm talking to artists and this makes sense and I need it and I'm not jealous I'm equal? Next day on milk I decided I am going to try and get into art school. It just came over me. Not even like I'm going to try and want to get into art school, but, plainly, I think I just need it.
Life is ridiculous and anything can happen. What makes most sense, what makes you cry with life. Do that. Fuck the excuses and work backwards from the ultimatum. I completely know it's not going to be easy, if even possible, but if I have a drive towards something, they I need to try. I am willing to coolly look at it, without romanticism or awe, and plainly put in motion steps to get me there. To be around people who want to theorise about and make art. Strangely, since this realisation, I have started to have dreams. Or started to see my dreams. I shall ask her about the science of this, but think this not so concrete evidence is pretty amazing.
Sad thing is, not even those thoughts were enough to breathe life into me. It's been fairly grim these past two days. I put it obviously down to my one-day weekend. Not into them, not used to them, and do not see the civility in them at all. I was glad she was in today, told her so. Like I need a fellow dissenter, someone who will just flatly tell the truth of the travesty and drop the act. I swore a lot today. I felt angry a lot. My dancing around others' hermeneutics was really really staid. I'm not dancing around you today, so yes why don't you just fuck off out the shop as I'm answering your question, YES THE BAKED GOODS DO HAVE DAIRY IS THAT HOW YOU'VE BEEN BROUGHT UP.
I met the most beautiful man at the lights. Well we didn't meet, you know, he was turning right. But we bike checked, those fine leather grips and a tidy red frame, some Toms and a Waitrose Foodhall. I looked behind me, ready to shout over if no other cyclists were to bare it's witness. There weren't any. Now's the time, he's turning right. Nice bike, I said, nice glasses he said, nice beard I said, only I didn't because I was tired and off and reeked of the day. He looked over again. Really. Fuck. The lights changed, he turned right. I tutted and shook my head, tears within the mile.
I'm frustrated because I sparked the other day. And now, the double life of having to close off those thoughts, temper them as they don't pay, coffee pays, thoughts don't pay, so ssshh. And my head says, no, no, er, no, stop thinking about these sparks for even minutes and they'll go again, disappear, these precious things. I want them to breathe but there's no oxygen, and I'm thinking I could die. Like them. On Friday, I had a few amazing exchanges on only 3 beers, the resonance of my twisted Theodore Zeldin quotation, the best conversations being where you say things you've never even thought before.
I can think, can I? You can understand me, can you? We are, conversing? We're talking about ideas and this bizarre space we are making, together, for these concepts is almost real. I'm thinking. I'm saying things I've never thought before. I'm talking to artists and this makes sense and I need it and I'm not jealous I'm equal? Next day on milk I decided I am going to try and get into art school. It just came over me. Not even like I'm going to try and want to get into art school, but, plainly, I think I just need it.
Life is ridiculous and anything can happen. What makes most sense, what makes you cry with life. Do that. Fuck the excuses and work backwards from the ultimatum. I completely know it's not going to be easy, if even possible, but if I have a drive towards something, they I need to try. I am willing to coolly look at it, without romanticism or awe, and plainly put in motion steps to get me there. To be around people who want to theorise about and make art. Strangely, since this realisation, I have started to have dreams. Or started to see my dreams. I shall ask her about the science of this, but think this not so concrete evidence is pretty amazing.
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