April Fool?

This afternoon ...

Sitting on the bench by the pond in the woods and I hear that familiar mewing cry. Sure enough, through the trees, I see heavy wings flapping. Then, in circles, it starts its ascent until finally glides clear of the tree line.

I watch it riding the air currents high up there. It’s impossible not to feel that the bird is flying for the sheer enjoyment of doing so. Without any other purpose or itinerary or need of self-justification.

Think buzzard.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/feb/17/jeanette-winterson-wine-lover-cellar-secrets

No doubt heading straight for Pseud’s Corner but so what? Fundamentally I agree with her.

Paul Bley - Ballads (ECM)
Charles Mingus - Plays Piano (Impulse)

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Sunny ... 14 to 15 degrees. A jacket will do.
Mike sends a photo of his garden in Finland - easily a foot of snow.

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The first day of the February break. I spend the afternoon strenuously doing nothing.

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Highest temperature on record for February ... 

Appropriately enough - for Valentine's Day - Paul Bley's Open, to love (ECM).

He's such a strange pianist - I'm trying to follow the way his interpretation unfolds, veers, cul de sacs, short runs, plus the wildly varying dynamics and the violent way he strikes the keys at times and then ... and then .. a sudden coalescence ... and something truly beautiful emerges.

'Ida Lupino' is such a one.

(Carla wrote it, of course).

P.S. to the previous post to mark the passing of England’s greatest keeper ...

Oh for the days when Banks meant a safe pair of hands.

This blog is on strike.

Evelyn Waugh’s lesser known masterpiece - A Handful or Dusters.

(Crops up during an afternoon class)

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Tomorrow is a nationwide strike. Not sure whether the workers on this blog will come out in sympathy.

minus bath
minus toilet
minus shower
minus wash basin

a not bathroom

Desert Island Discs

The second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto no.5 ('Emperor') ...

Just back from the Vikingur Olafsson concert at Flagey as part of their Piano Days series.

Absolutely riveting from start to finish. Having requested that applause is kept until the end, he plays through a selection from his Bach CD adding in an additional piece. Then, as a first encore a transcription of an Icelandic song by a composer I didn’t quite catch. Then, as a second encore, one of the Glass Etudes. Rapturous applause. He seems genuinely appreciative of the response. 

Afterwards the word goes round he will come out to sign autographs and CDs and, true enough, he appears and settles down behind a table. Too good an opportunity to miss, I wait in the scrum and proffer my CD mentioning as I do I like his taste in sculpture. He pauses for a moment and then smiles - yes! the statue for the unknown bureaucrat in Reykjavik (he’d mentioned it in an interview). Turns out, it is by his father-in-law and he’ll be pleased someone in Brussels likes it. I suggest he signs accordingly - For the unknown bureaucrat! The perfect souvenir - English and French senses. 

Superb pianist and a jolly nice chap. 

“To the speculator, falling prices present just as lucrative an opportunity as rising prices, meaning that instability in general is attractive. As long as nothing ever stays the same, you can exit better off than when you entered. The only unprofitable scenario is stasis.”

(William Davies in the LRB 7 February 2019)

Interesting article on the concept of ‘exit’ and the way it has replaced ‘voice’.

Seagoon: Ah, where’s the front door?
Scot No.1: It's in this brown paper parcel. [Opens it] We only use it for going in and out.

(The Great Strings Robberies)

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More or less my thoughts on doors.

New doors. Dust everywhere.

That peculiar phenomenon of contemporary education - the accreditation visit - and its equally peculiar sleight of hand: “we are not here to pass judgement or offer solutions rather to facilitate a conversation”.

(Nevertheless, we expect to be paid.)

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One of those Maeght Galerie Duos I mentioned yesterday.

Thinking of adapting the idea to a D-I-Y lo-fi version. Repurposed matchbox for the slip case ... 

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Birthday today - thanks to all those who have remembered.

Wandered around the BRAFA this morning feeling - as usual - fraudulent and out of place. Dwell too long over a work and they’ll swoop on you either to see if you’re serious or imply you’re fooling no one.

I’m pleasantly surprised to discover a tiny Greek head going for a mere 300 euros. A nice thing - as they say on afternoon telly.

The real find was, however, the Galerie Maeght Duos: beautifully produced little folds each in its own slip case. I’ll post a picture tomorrow. Two hundred euros a throw. Not bad when you’re getting several limited edition microprints. Anyway, justified the visit.

"... Often I write in poem-constellations and go about making a world by untying metaphors from their tenors, spinning them into networks. Structuring or crystallisation can arrive late, as long as a year into a particular work zone. A form emerges which I recognise as the cell that will transcribe through the space and time of the poem – it will metastasise. But I can get bored with that particular way, I can hear the verse curdling. What interests me is how meaning emerges from rhythmic cross-currents and sonic and semic clusters, and I don’t want to be able to predict what will come about. That may sound experimental, but I want to recognise what emerges too, as having awaited me all the time. ..."

John Wilkinson (off the Carcanet Blog)

I very much like this statement. 

As a fan of Jeremy Hardy - especially on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue & the Miles Jupp era News Quiz - it has to be a sad day today.

What else to say?

Road testing a new (at least for us) recipe.

Grilled salmon on top of Udon noodles that are tossed in a stir fry of ...

thinly sliced red onion
sliced pak choi
bean sprouts
garlic
ginger
teriyaki sauce
sesame oil
chopped shallots


It’s basically a Wagamama standard customised for a certain fussy palate.

Tasty. But can be tweaked a bit.

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Which brings January to a close. A remarkable one post per day hit rate. And February?

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The snow god gets it wrong again ... the first flakes falling at 6 am ... .

That said, driving home through the woods in the early afternoon it’s a magical scene.

Some recompense.

Thinking the ... box

Six faces
Square
The right angle
Vertical/ horizontal
Corners
Rigidity
Exterior/ interior
Closed
Symmetry
Contains
Manufactured (wood, metal, etc)
Lid or lock
Secrets
Archive
...

Thinking the ... bowl

Round
Circle
Curved
Hollow
Open
Irregularities
Concavity
Receives
Holds (temporarily)
Adapts to the hand, the palm
Shaped, turned, formed
Clay
...

This in relation to Western vs Japanese aesthetics

emballage cadeau

Pull this CD down off the shelves - Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961 - an ECM reissuing of two earlier recordings (right?) Fusion and Thesis. Paul Bley on piano, Steve Swallow on bass. I first heard it at Eric’s and the blurred edge cover photo can’t help remind me of his pictures.

It is wonderful music - the very first track (a Carla Bley composition) ‘Jesus Maria’ is utterly exquisite. Sitting upstairs this morning ... the rain falling on the Velux ... a precious six minutes and thirteen seconds.

The Hausdorff dimension is drawn ...

the more intuitive notion of

the snowflake

summarized in each iteration

points outward

the ratio of giving

a small number of corners

found everywhere

       clouds are not spheres

       

       mountains are not cones

       nor does lightning traverse in a straight line

       (but there are well documented exceptions) 

(from a farewell volume for a colleague) 

It’s like when you edit apps on the screen - they’re still there but shimmer.

A variation on Zygmund Baumann’s zombie institutions. Seem familiar?

Dipping in and out of Ric Caddel's Magpie Words.

"A crapload of torque". A phrase used by a student to describe the kind of vehicle suited to heavy snow.

I love the phrase - and what better description of my classes?

I learn today that in Venice one drinks a shadow (“bere un’ombra”).

Once again Italian conjures poetry out of the everyday.

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The snow eventually arrived around 11am. C+ for effort - although enough to make the drive home a cautious affair.

A frozen dog turd I’d cleared off the pavement into the road first thing is now a nasty fudge smear in the tyre ribbed white.

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Reading on in Jarman’s Modern Nature - intrigued by the entry about clothes. He always bought his socks from M&S.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04k7vqk

Happened upon this while trawling for Jarman-related stuff.

Tempest - as a name - is uncannily apt. However, if I’m honest, the words grate. The voice sounds all too much like a Kerouac wannabe. I’d prefer the doleful tones of Iain Sinclair rakimg up the phlegm of the past as the tide comes in.

Snow rumoured for tomorrow ...

Oh how I hate this unseeing

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IKB
spirit in matter

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(Written in the entry for Wednesday 24th May 1989 - Derek Jarman, Modern Nature)

minus 3 degrees

hard white frost

sun & clear blue sky

a proper winter's day

- hooray!

An afternoon class describing the passage from “O” to “o’er” and then “ear” to “odour” in the opening speech of Orsino in Twelfth Night.

Truly a stealing and giving of sound and sense/ scents.

It’s a moment when you feel you could be looking over Shakespeare’s shoulder - quill in hand, hesitating before writing the final word ... perfume? ... scent? ... fragrance? ... then ... odour.

A gift of sorts.

The silence on the floor of my house is all the questions and all the answers that have ever been in the world. The sentimental furniture interrupt the peace. The reflection of sunset speaks loudly of days.

(Agnes Martin)

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Andando el Tiempo - Carla Bley

&

Modern Nature, Derek Jarman

Just tuning in ... Corbin has just called for a vote of no confidence ... & 230 votes against the Brexit deal ...

Interesting times ...

Having a Derek Jarman enthusiasm ... the Sketchbooks, Chroma, etc..

Secretly it’s the handwriting ... I copy one of his pages noticing his curled over ‘d’s ... his long downstroke of the ‘p’, the occasional ligatures between words. And, as always, it’s not simply the letters themselves but the air each stroke inscribes, the spacing between lines, and then the sense of the page. Elegance. Rhythm, too.

Such writing speaks of consideration. A daily habit of attention. A sitting to attention at the desk, pen in hand, to compose - oneself and the page.

The elder Wafflette has just discovered that The Crust (CBBC) has popped up on Youtube - who knows for how long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiw2MpqGNyY

We loved this ... after school ... sitting on the sofa ... tea & marmite sandwiches ... . Pure joy.

Ear Food

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First visit to the Mediatheque in 2019 ...

• Carla Bley, Trios
• Donald Byrd Quartet, Au Chat Qui Peche
• Tomasz Stanko New York Quartet, Wislawa
• Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
• Valentin Silvestrov, Hieroglyphen der Nacht
• Nils Petter Molvaer, Buoyancy
• Art Tatum & Ben Webster, The Album
• Freddie Hubbard, Blue Spirits 

At work, with the help of one of our IT gurus, I finally sort out a glitch with the report writing software.

She suggests a few options - which I dutifully try - & lo & behold it works.

With disarming honesty she admits she can’t explain why it works. But, evidently, it does.

“Magic?” I suggest.

She agrees.

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"Maybe you should stay with your Mama ..."

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A colleague sent this photo through to me today. You know who it is - right?

Imagine ... this little chap growing a (that) moustache and composing Brown Shoes Don't Make It ... Dinah Moe Hum ... Titties 'n Beer ... Who'd have thought it, eh? 

Wearing my new pair of Happy Socks today.

A Lesson in Mistranslation no.1

The wide ifs of d'Over

Reading ‘Rest’ by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.

Silicon Valley wisdom which, as you scratch away at the surface, reveals rather a large debt  to Stoicism & Oriental thought.

As Olson might say - go to source.

“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”

(Paul Valéry via Peter Blegvad)

Happen on this reading back through last year’s notebooks.

Still valid.

I wouldn’t try to capture it
on the page, or in a blog, the inauspicious
leavings of a day

...

(‘Gravy for the Prisoners’, John Ashbery, Breezeway)

Today’s disc/overy is  the Japanese percussionist Kuniko & her solo recording of Steve Reich’s Drumming. (She plays each part & multi-tracks).

Unfortunately the pressing isn’t good - several skips in Part IV mean I’ll have to take it back. Realising, of course, that this might be met with a raised eyebrow. (Bit like returning a copy of Finnegans Wake for a misprint on page 10.)

A few days late but it might appeal to those who do crosswords ...

“Hey! A prawn?” “Yep!” Stir fry for starters.

(5, 3, 4)

The Infrathin

Some further definitions ...

1.

The felt texture of these words as your eye glides

2.

The silent letter (e.g.  the 'p' in psyche, the 'w' in answer, the 'n' in hymn ...)

3.

The apostrophe (e.g. isn't)

4.

The distance between seeing-saying 'c' and 'e' or 'm' and 'n'

5.

Lethologica (the word on the tip of my tongue syndrome)

6.

The thickness of a shadow

7,

The 'a' of différance (Derrida)

8.

The clinamen (Lucretius)

9.

'Ma' in Japanese thought & aesthetics (at least when approached with Western mind?)

10.

Morton Feldman's music

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Supposedly there is a photo in which they are eating in Pizza Hut - not, I think, this one.

Leading me to wonder what each would order ... Cage ... Funghi (obviously) ... Boulez ... a Calzone (Pli selon pli) ... Messiaen? A Francescana, I suppose ... maybe with pineapple thrown in?

(Other possibilities suggest themselves ... Debussy ... Frutti di Mare ... Vivaldi ... Quattro Stagioni (too easy) ... & Zappa ... a Diavola-Gorgonzola in one?)

A whole new school of musical criticism declares itself ...