I've been listening to/watching this song all day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reB4YLs-49U
Friday, 5 March 2010
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Another post.
Oh my goodness it's six o'clock already! Which means in only an hour I'm to be at the Assembly Rooms to meet friends to see Microcomedy (FREE!) and I still haven't managed to make myself a sandwich ('lunch'). Sitting on my bed, hungry. Was going to spend a few hours reading Midnight's Children. Will do that, actually. Tea, sandwich, Midnight's Kids. Right.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Blogs blogs blogs. People write them and they have lovely flashy features and mine is still kind of unformed. And incoherent.
I'm reading Midnight's Children for the first time properly and am loving it. I always find it quite strange that Westerners have taken it to their heart so much because it is just so Indian; every thought is so Indian. 'I have probably said enough, too, about my interest in creating a literary idiolect that allowed the rhythms and thought patterns of Indian languages to blend with the idiosyncracies of 'Hinglish' and 'Bambaiyya', the polyglot street-slang of Bombay.'
My little multicoloured attic room is looking slightly more pleasing now that I've cleared more of the floor. The blind (is that what it's called?) is down on the window keeping the room relatively cool, and I like this, it feels summery and elegant, because I'm thinking of havelis and tents and cool things like that. Joe next door hasn't yet caught on. Summer equals sunshine and he sits with his shirt off sweating and surprised by the heat.
Empty unplanned spaces scare me, but they shouldn't. I'm just worried I might end up doing nothing for a summer. That is a legitimate and awful worry. And when I have no plans my parents can jump in and push and prod me in numerous directions, usually boring and THAT's horrible. BUT now a couple of months will be spent in Rajasthan doing fieldwork for my dissertation, to do with the forms that performing arts take in Hadoti, which is the region I live in. How cool! I'll be recording songs that may never have been recorded before. The awesome thing is that the Rajasthani government has just adopted a Vikas aur Viraasat (Development and Heritage) programme about 'strengthening culture in the villages' and what I'm doing could actually help with that - I feel so *current*! Hadoti arts are far less studied than stuff out in western Rajasthan, which is a desert and so much more exotic. But Hadoti's beautiful too.
I need to reply to Glori's Fbook message ('gay theatre???')Haha :)
I did a (truly awesome) play at a festival in Dublin just before exams and that was an amazing and unusual experience in many respects. I won't talk about that much now but we had bowler hats, lots and lots of props in a red suitcase, red umbrellas, now this just becomes a list; the Grafton hotel, green shamrock crocodile socks, Front Lounge, 'I'm not wondergirl, not wonderwoman', EUROVISION!, revision on beautiful sofas, the Outhouse Theatre, huge free pots of tea, lovely lovely people, Gala performance, extracts from brilliant plays, goody bags!!, sausage stotties, rain, a play featuring two naked women shuffling around and making weird weird mechanical noises which we went along to (it was the only play at our theatre between our two performances) like naughty children and SOMEONE decided we should all move to the front row and I tell you, I thought I was going to die from trying to restrain so much laughter. Or laugh out loud which would have been really really rude and inappropriate.
Breathe. AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Honestly. I would act it out to you if I could. They had completely blank faces and were wearing nothing but shoes - one walking boots and one flip-flops and - wait, Callum and Ben will try to describe it to you.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=649547145763&ref=nf
I hope that works.
Anjali xx
I'm reading Midnight's Children for the first time properly and am loving it. I always find it quite strange that Westerners have taken it to their heart so much because it is just so Indian; every thought is so Indian. 'I have probably said enough, too, about my interest in creating a literary idiolect that allowed the rhythms and thought patterns of Indian languages to blend with the idiosyncracies of 'Hinglish' and 'Bambaiyya', the polyglot street-slang of Bombay.'
My little multicoloured attic room is looking slightly more pleasing now that I've cleared more of the floor. The blind (is that what it's called?) is down on the window keeping the room relatively cool, and I like this, it feels summery and elegant, because I'm thinking of havelis and tents and cool things like that. Joe next door hasn't yet caught on. Summer equals sunshine and he sits with his shirt off sweating and surprised by the heat.
Empty unplanned spaces scare me, but they shouldn't. I'm just worried I might end up doing nothing for a summer. That is a legitimate and awful worry. And when I have no plans my parents can jump in and push and prod me in numerous directions, usually boring and THAT's horrible. BUT now a couple of months will be spent in Rajasthan doing fieldwork for my dissertation, to do with the forms that performing arts take in Hadoti, which is the region I live in. How cool! I'll be recording songs that may never have been recorded before. The awesome thing is that the Rajasthani government has just adopted a Vikas aur Viraasat (Development and Heritage) programme about 'strengthening culture in the villages' and what I'm doing could actually help with that - I feel so *current*! Hadoti arts are far less studied than stuff out in western Rajasthan, which is a desert and so much more exotic. But Hadoti's beautiful too.
I need to reply to Glori's Fbook message ('gay theatre???')Haha :)
I did a (truly awesome) play at a festival in Dublin just before exams and that was an amazing and unusual experience in many respects. I won't talk about that much now but we had bowler hats, lots and lots of props in a red suitcase, red umbrellas, now this just becomes a list; the Grafton hotel, green shamrock crocodile socks, Front Lounge, 'I'm not wondergirl, not wonderwoman', EUROVISION!, revision on beautiful sofas, the Outhouse Theatre, huge free pots of tea, lovely lovely people, Gala performance, extracts from brilliant plays, goody bags!!, sausage stotties, rain, a play featuring two naked women shuffling around and making weird weird mechanical noises which we went along to (it was the only play at our theatre between our two performances) like naughty children and SOMEONE decided we should all move to the front row and I tell you, I thought I was going to die from trying to restrain so much laughter. Or laugh out loud which would have been really really rude and inappropriate.
Honestly. I would act it out to you if I could. They had completely blank faces and were wearing nothing but shoes - one walking boots and one flip-flops and - wait, Callum and Ben will try to describe it to you.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=649547145763&ref=nf
I hope that works.
Anjali xx
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
The use of music as torture. Man alive. They played prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Barney the dinosaur's annoying little 'I love you, you love me' thing. All of me revolts against that, in particular. Just the most cruel, cruel sadistic thing. Also Christina Aguilera's 'Let's Get Dirty' - imagine the humiliation for Muslim prisoners.
* yes, haha, news - torturers in Gunatanamo Bay are cruel and sadistic. *Obviously*.
The reason I picked up on this is that after a certain time - early evening, in Durham bus station, they were playing the most awful music ever - Christmas songs sung by (it seemed)mickey mouse. Just the most annoying and bizarre and inhumanly cutesy voice, and we reckon the idea was to stop young people from thinking the bus station is a nice place to hang out. So [*mucho indignation!*] I object to the sneaky underhandedness of it, I object to the demonisation of people just because they wear lots of eyeliner and don't sit on the seats - and who are they doing it for? Their 'valued customers'? Because the people taking buses aren't going to thank you either, pal. I object to making the bus station a terribly bleak and cheerless place at Christmas, of all times! Oh, don't give me that 'it's happy Christmas music' - it's not and you know it. It's also sad that there isn't really anywhere for kids to hang out in Durham. There isn't even much of a disused playground. There's all this stuff catering to students - and the under-10s are all locked up at home, presumably - but where do the teenagers go? And how much should we be worrying about teenagers anyway?
Cue launching into 'kids these days' speech.
Kids these days are watched too much. Way too much. When I was working at the After School Club in my gap year, that was the main thing, I think, that I took away from it. We needed one adult per 6 kids or something, and our job was to watch them, sort out scrapes, make sure they didn't do anything dangerous. We provided the activities, and they played by the rules. Of course I loved the opportunity to observe/participate in the world these kids created. Loved it like anything. But by golly, how much of it was any of my business? When I was a kid, I barely remember adults even existing. Especially at Hebron. Imagine if all the time we were playing we were being watched. How awful, how wrong. Imagine if whenever someone swore a teacher leapt out from behind a bush. You can't and shouldn't protect kids from everything. Friendships form and break up, fights happen, and adults should only be brought in as a last resort. Obviously, if you're there are as an adult and you see an argument break out, you're going to step in. So just don't be there. Stop spoiling everything.
Kids should keep each other entertained. 'Keeping kids off the streets'? I long - always - for a world where kids play together on the pavements. It's part of my love for 'street culture' - life being lived in public places, as a visible community. Britain is so rubbish at this, but there are all those old photos of kids playing hopscotch. Urban India is pretty rubbish. House to car to shop to car to house - oh its awful, there are no public spaces, Delhi doesn't have a city centre. Endless 'colonies' with strangers living next door to each other. Dundlod was beautiful - kids ran around the streets and were in and out of each others houses, as was everyone, all the time. Could it be because there were no cars? Because there is nothing in the house you are afraid might get stolen? Because 'the house' simply does not have all the meanings it has for the more affluent?
* yes, haha, news - torturers in Gunatanamo Bay are cruel and sadistic. *Obviously*.
The reason I picked up on this is that after a certain time - early evening, in Durham bus station, they were playing the most awful music ever - Christmas songs sung by (it seemed)mickey mouse. Just the most annoying and bizarre and inhumanly cutesy voice, and we reckon the idea was to stop young people from thinking the bus station is a nice place to hang out. So [*mucho indignation!*] I object to the sneaky underhandedness of it, I object to the demonisation of people just because they wear lots of eyeliner and don't sit on the seats - and who are they doing it for? Their 'valued customers'? Because the people taking buses aren't going to thank you either, pal. I object to making the bus station a terribly bleak and cheerless place at Christmas, of all times! Oh, don't give me that 'it's happy Christmas music' - it's not and you know it. It's also sad that there isn't really anywhere for kids to hang out in Durham. There isn't even much of a disused playground. There's all this stuff catering to students - and the under-10s are all locked up at home, presumably - but where do the teenagers go? And how much should we be worrying about teenagers anyway?
Cue launching into 'kids these days' speech.
Kids these days are watched too much. Way too much. When I was working at the After School Club in my gap year, that was the main thing, I think, that I took away from it. We needed one adult per 6 kids or something, and our job was to watch them, sort out scrapes, make sure they didn't do anything dangerous. We provided the activities, and they played by the rules. Of course I loved the opportunity to observe/participate in the world these kids created. Loved it like anything. But by golly, how much of it was any of my business? When I was a kid, I barely remember adults even existing. Especially at Hebron. Imagine if all the time we were playing we were being watched. How awful, how wrong. Imagine if whenever someone swore a teacher leapt out from behind a bush. You can't and shouldn't protect kids from everything. Friendships form and break up, fights happen, and adults should only be brought in as a last resort. Obviously, if you're there are as an adult and you see an argument break out, you're going to step in. So just don't be there. Stop spoiling everything.
Kids should keep each other entertained. 'Keeping kids off the streets'? I long - always - for a world where kids play together on the pavements. It's part of my love for 'street culture' - life being lived in public places, as a visible community. Britain is so rubbish at this, but there are all those old photos of kids playing hopscotch. Urban India is pretty rubbish. House to car to shop to car to house - oh its awful, there are no public spaces, Delhi doesn't have a city centre. Endless 'colonies' with strangers living next door to each other. Dundlod was beautiful - kids ran around the streets and were in and out of each others houses, as was everyone, all the time. Could it be because there were no cars? Because there is nothing in the house you are afraid might get stolen? Because 'the house' simply does not have all the meanings it has for the more affluent?
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
:(
I feel like such an idiot for not arranging to do anything on New Year's Eve and so ending up sitting in my room in an empty empty Durham, with a stomach cramp no less. And not even a train ride because my keys to the flat in Edinburgh have disappeared, so I missed my train and have that to worry about, instead of 'Anjali, being on your own has never been a problem for you so let's just have a wonderful evening!' No, I need to find that key or think up another plan, because I want to be out of the house ASAP, because I suspect the Browns (our landlords) may come in tomorrow, and I told them I was leaving today.
Also, do you have any idea where the manual for my printer is so I can find out how to fix 'error 5100' and print out all the lecture notes for last term. The work situation at the end of term 2 is depressing. Other people actually work! I want to work! I need to sort my life out. I am going to sort my life out tomorrow.
Meanwhile, a fantastic little production is taking shape in my head - and also panicking me when I think about next term because I want to direct this thing but also want to act in something - there is so much going on drama-wise next term and I really really want to be in at least two of them (but no, of course that's a bad idea. I need to look at dates and things and work out what I can do sensibly) but also work has to take centre stage (ha ha, funny choice of phrase)because about a quarter of my degree is due next term! Not that much. But a heck of a lot.
But my holidays have been awesome! The first part - I went to London - I love London! My brother lives in a flat in Shadwell, which is in East London, and inhabited almost entirely by Bangladeshis, and I loved it.
Yes, it is really not good for me to be holed up here, when it's people and places that get me excited. Also, there are very few books, both here and in my flat in Edinburgh. I can't live like that. I miss intensely the library at Morland. (Which is where I spent Christmas. Oh, wood-burning stoves! ) Books, fire and company.
I should go and cook something and then...I should probably call my parents in the morning - quite early in the morning, and ask what to do and whether Patrizios are there with spare key...
Here is a video to cheer you up. I've watched it perhaps 50 times. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WCUfkMkVbwo
And a Happy New Year.
I would appreciate a hug and a prayer, spiritually rubbish year of prolonged crisis to tell you the truth, but God has got a hold of me and already the sky is lightening. I have been rubbish at communicating - like a child with a disability - but I hope for that to change - I plan for that to change - I will be writing letters and telling everything to someone. Because not talking is nonsensical self-punishment. I want to look back on 2009 and say 'that was an awesome year, full of love and growth and light and life and excitement'. Man, I'm starving. I love you all. xxxx
Also, do you have any idea where the manual for my printer is so I can find out how to fix 'error 5100' and print out all the lecture notes for last term. The work situation at the end of term 2 is depressing. Other people actually work! I want to work! I need to sort my life out. I am going to sort my life out tomorrow.
Meanwhile, a fantastic little production is taking shape in my head - and also panicking me when I think about next term because I want to direct this thing but also want to act in something - there is so much going on drama-wise next term and I really really want to be in at least two of them (but no, of course that's a bad idea. I need to look at dates and things and work out what I can do sensibly) but also work has to take centre stage (ha ha, funny choice of phrase)because about a quarter of my degree is due next term! Not that much. But a heck of a lot.
But my holidays have been awesome! The first part - I went to London - I love London! My brother lives in a flat in Shadwell, which is in East London, and inhabited almost entirely by Bangladeshis, and I loved it.
Yes, it is really not good for me to be holed up here, when it's people and places that get me excited. Also, there are very few books, both here and in my flat in Edinburgh. I can't live like that. I miss intensely the library at Morland. (Which is where I spent Christmas. Oh, wood-burning stoves! ) Books, fire and company.
I should go and cook something and then...I should probably call my parents in the morning - quite early in the morning, and ask what to do and whether Patrizios are there with spare key...
Here is a video to cheer you up. I've watched it perhaps 50 times. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WCUfkMkVbwo
And a Happy New Year.
I would appreciate a hug and a prayer, spiritually rubbish year of prolonged crisis to tell you the truth, but God has got a hold of me and already the sky is lightening. I have been rubbish at communicating - like a child with a disability - but I hope for that to change - I plan for that to change - I will be writing letters and telling everything to someone. Because not talking is nonsensical self-punishment. I want to look back on 2009 and say 'that was an awesome year, full of love and growth and light and life and excitement'. Man, I'm starving. I love you all. xxxx
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
I've just been to a lecture, and I feel I should congratulate myself whenever I do something like this. I missed five last week, plus a tutorial. I'd started to forget about this degree business. So I'm panicking a bit.
Every day feels like a new and experimental life. Like when you've come back from the dead, or someone you know has died, or you've taken the day off to take the train to Wales. You're divorced from routine or responsibility. You're in a special pocket of existing, in fact when you sit in a room full of other people on computers you suspect you might only be a trick of the light.
I really should work.
I've been given a new life!
I am so free!
I am going to be responsible about this!
I am going to do something else that defies logic!
Today I sat in Esquires and read the deaths notices from start to finish
(If I go home I can finish that pizza)
Some sort of emotional masochism? I needed to feel
I wanted to sit in a coffee shop and plumb the depths of people's experience
Goodness I feel funny. All I had today was one large ('ampio') cup of coffee ('latte') with raspberry syrup. Now it's 3 o'clock. I'm floating
That was one thing - bearable and sad and important - every day people's lives are being changed. Everybody dies, and today these particular families are face to face with the abyss under existence and through the cracks in carefully constructed lives it's the same thing. And families and love and all the churches and flowers and how many are Christians? I hoped they all were. I made myself believe that they all were.
On the next page was other things - someone's kitten lost - and a year on - maybe a few years on - people remembering the dead. And someone called Ashley who had a poem printed from 'mam and dad', and one from Gran. I went to the toilet and cried like a baby. My heart breaks so often these days. Remembrance day and all those poor boys in the army.
Let's get some books out, but I really need to eat.
I was out of the house at eleven! I experienced sunlight! I went to a lecture and now I'm in the library! It's like being on holiday.
Four hours till rehearsal - hmmm, I could do two hours of reading for my essay? Yes. I could go to Castle library arrrrrrrgh that darn project, I get so frustrated because their ideas are so different to mine.
I am starving.
I was sick last week, don't worry, I'm not that much of a slacker.
Every day feels like a new and experimental life. Like when you've come back from the dead, or someone you know has died, or you've taken the day off to take the train to Wales. You're divorced from routine or responsibility. You're in a special pocket of existing, in fact when you sit in a room full of other people on computers you suspect you might only be a trick of the light.
I really should work.
I've been given a new life!
I am so free!
I am going to be responsible about this!
I am going to do something else that defies logic!
Today I sat in Esquires and read the deaths notices from start to finish
(If I go home I can finish that pizza)
Some sort of emotional masochism? I needed to feel
I wanted to sit in a coffee shop and plumb the depths of people's experience
Goodness I feel funny. All I had today was one large ('ampio') cup of coffee ('latte') with raspberry syrup. Now it's 3 o'clock. I'm floating
That was one thing - bearable and sad and important - every day people's lives are being changed. Everybody dies, and today these particular families are face to face with the abyss under existence and through the cracks in carefully constructed lives it's the same thing. And families and love and all the churches and flowers and how many are Christians? I hoped they all were. I made myself believe that they all were.
On the next page was other things - someone's kitten lost - and a year on - maybe a few years on - people remembering the dead. And someone called Ashley who had a poem printed from 'mam and dad', and one from Gran. I went to the toilet and cried like a baby. My heart breaks so often these days. Remembrance day and all those poor boys in the army.
Let's get some books out, but I really need to eat.
I was out of the house at eleven! I experienced sunlight! I went to a lecture and now I'm in the library! It's like being on holiday.
Four hours till rehearsal - hmmm, I could do two hours of reading for my essay? Yes. I could go to Castle library arrrrrrrgh that darn project, I get so frustrated because their ideas are so different to mine.
I am starving.
I was sick last week, don't worry, I'm not that much of a slacker.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Prologue
We start in Paris, because that is where I was early July, all four of us in the most beautiful flat in the most beautiful city. Elizabeth Simpson is an artist - about eighty, with a squeaky tremulous voice for a lady who's fairly large - in a rugby way. Not fat. Just large. She's had an operation on her vocal chords, and in other places as well. All this is irrelevant - she spends every winter in India, recently researching Marwari tribal art, or something - a few months in Paris and the rest in England. I have met her once. I showed her around Kota fort and she took photographs of every inch of wallpainting, which was incredible or futile because her hands were shaking like anything. What fascinated me was that all her accent was English except her r's. Her r's were French.
When she was staying with Mum last year she became very ill, and Mum took care of her, and so is credited with saving her life, and so was offered a stay in Elizabeth's flat in Paris. There we go.
It was The Most brilliant living space I have ever been in. I fell in love utterly. More than anything there was just freedom and creativity oozing from every corner. A little rough, a little ramshackle, wooden floorboards, rooms just thrown together (it seems) in an organic sort of layout, meaning there were tiny wee corridors - the French flat version of Edinburgh Old Town, perhaps. But it must have cost a heck of a lot.- oh and balconies, with plantpots. The main 'space', shall we call it, was a long room with great [French windows, are they called?] all down one side, onto the balconies, and divided into two by a curtain. One half, next to the kitchen, had the dining table, and the other half had just a pool table and a couch, that I slept on. Also there were several bookshelves, books, art material, stacks of framed paintings, piles of books, 'objets d'art'...oh, and a large model aeroplane hanging from the ceiling above the dining table, that sort of thing. She collected a heck of a lot - beautiful things from all over the world - little sculptures, paintings on cloth and paper, beaded jewellery draped around lampshades, and the most gorgeous rugs and textiles. It is perfect, so much so that the bathroom is slightly grotty and the showerhead sometimes comes off (you must understand that this is perfect, these are the perfect living conditions, I hate shininess.
This was a long time ago and remembering it, in the light of what I have just said, gives me hope. I have stayed at rich people's houses and have hated it - beautiful houses, family houses. I just can't do it. I can't feel at home there. Now, we must understand that though I said 'rich houses', though richness seems to typify the houses I am thinking of when I am there, I do not think, actually, that the problem is wealth. Because I love Morland House - which is obviously big and ancient and not poor. Is that because I have basically grown up there and the issue is 'feeling I belong'? Also, the Anokhi Farm - where the people have loads of money and the houses are beautifully and intelligently designed. (These people are textile/fashion designers in India and their house is just gorgeous. And I can imagine myself living there.) Perhaps it is just an issue of 'too much carpet'. There are all kinds of things at work here probably, but I really do balk at *too much comfort!* Insular houses and insular lifestyles.
But I was telling you about India.
I'm in Paris, feeling very French, and thinking that perhaps in the future I will be French. I would love to revisit all the wonderful places we saw in Paris - the utter joy of everywhere, the creativity and the marks of so many great men. It was very inspiring. And all French people are beautiful. We left a few days before Bastille Day. We saw the flags up on the Champs-Elysees, and we saw aeroplanes practising flying down it. And then it was time to go to India. I didn't want to go.
The way I got to India was: first on the Eurostar, to London. Then to Heathrow. Then fly to Delhi, overnight. It was very disorientating. At Heathrow after a day of travelling I didn't know where I was, which country, no idea. I take my stash of UK coins out of the secret pocket of my bag - 'lots of 2p coins' I say to myself - the phrase '2p coins' is oddly familiar, which is comforting, and its exhilarating in a small way that something should be familiar. I have to search under piles of obscurity for the meaning of 2p coins - why, where have I been? I have forgotten about Paris.
WH Smith is another of those exhilaratingly comforting places. There is even some territorial pride in what I feel here. Pride in myself that here is something I'm familiar with - it's mine.
...oh, did I not post this? To be continued. I'm probably in the middle of some train of thought here, but zjooppp....
When she was staying with Mum last year she became very ill, and Mum took care of her, and so is credited with saving her life, and so was offered a stay in Elizabeth's flat in Paris. There we go.
It was The Most brilliant living space I have ever been in. I fell in love utterly. More than anything there was just freedom and creativity oozing from every corner. A little rough, a little ramshackle, wooden floorboards, rooms just thrown together (it seems) in an organic sort of layout, meaning there were tiny wee corridors - the French flat version of Edinburgh Old Town, perhaps. But it must have cost a heck of a lot.- oh and balconies, with plantpots. The main 'space', shall we call it, was a long room with great [French windows, are they called?] all down one side, onto the balconies, and divided into two by a curtain. One half, next to the kitchen, had the dining table, and the other half had just a pool table and a couch, that I slept on. Also there were several bookshelves, books, art material, stacks of framed paintings, piles of books, 'objets d'art'...oh, and a large model aeroplane hanging from the ceiling above the dining table, that sort of thing. She collected a heck of a lot - beautiful things from all over the world - little sculptures, paintings on cloth and paper, beaded jewellery draped around lampshades, and the most gorgeous rugs and textiles. It is perfect, so much so that the bathroom is slightly grotty and the showerhead sometimes comes off (you must understand that this is perfect, these are the perfect living conditions, I hate shininess.
This was a long time ago and remembering it, in the light of what I have just said, gives me hope. I have stayed at rich people's houses and have hated it - beautiful houses, family houses. I just can't do it. I can't feel at home there. Now, we must understand that though I said 'rich houses', though richness seems to typify the houses I am thinking of when I am there, I do not think, actually, that the problem is wealth. Because I love Morland House - which is obviously big and ancient and not poor. Is that because I have basically grown up there and the issue is 'feeling I belong'? Also, the Anokhi Farm - where the people have loads of money and the houses are beautifully and intelligently designed. (These people are textile/fashion designers in India and their house is just gorgeous. And I can imagine myself living there.) Perhaps it is just an issue of 'too much carpet'. There are all kinds of things at work here probably, but I really do balk at *too much comfort!* Insular houses and insular lifestyles.
But I was telling you about India.
I'm in Paris, feeling very French, and thinking that perhaps in the future I will be French. I would love to revisit all the wonderful places we saw in Paris - the utter joy of everywhere, the creativity and the marks of so many great men. It was very inspiring. And all French people are beautiful. We left a few days before Bastille Day. We saw the flags up on the Champs-Elysees, and we saw aeroplanes practising flying down it. And then it was time to go to India. I didn't want to go.
The way I got to India was: first on the Eurostar, to London. Then to Heathrow. Then fly to Delhi, overnight. It was very disorientating. At Heathrow after a day of travelling I didn't know where I was, which country, no idea. I take my stash of UK coins out of the secret pocket of my bag - 'lots of 2p coins' I say to myself - the phrase '2p coins' is oddly familiar, which is comforting, and its exhilarating in a small way that something should be familiar. I have to search under piles of obscurity for the meaning of 2p coins - why, where have I been? I have forgotten about Paris.
WH Smith is another of those exhilaratingly comforting places. There is even some territorial pride in what I feel here. Pride in myself that here is something I'm familiar with - it's mine.
This part of this airport that I'm in is glamorous in such an Asian way, I feel. All these perfume shops and things. Like Dubai or somewhere. All the attendants and people are also all what people'd call 'Asian', and most of the other passengers-in-waiting are too. Non-glamour: a group of Bulbuls standing two by two in a line giggle and eagerly look and nudge each other at an English guy. They are around fifteen, gawky, uniformed. He is tall, droopy, in shorts, curly lightish hair, scruffy and nondescript and average/less than average-looking and I feel so annoyed at them. And Mr Sir barks 'where's your partner?' because all these teenagers must have partners, and they let themselves, how spastic.
[*One Indian phenomenon - the teenage girl who is unaware of her breasts, bodily hair and appearance in general. Funny, because most Indian women are acutely aware of their femininity, right down to the smallest graceful gorgeous girls in my school in my village, who danced coyly with mehndi proudly on their hands. And there was such a huge understanding of what it is to be a woman, and a being-women-together feel. That was in a village setting.
And I am annoyed that an English muchly-pierced alternative-looking girl is wildly incongruous and stared at in suspicion and distrust.
...oh, did I not post this? To be continued. I'm probably in the middle of some train of thought here, but zjooppp....
Saturday, 13 September 2008
What?!
This is crazy! For months - months, I tell you - have been unable to access this blogger thing. It wouldn't let me sign on.
Well helloooooo.......
triumphant and joyful ladida - as if, for example, the host of a radio show had been held captive in Afghanistan for 7 months and was now back on air.
So, I am listening to the Last Night of the Proms. I have SO much to tell you. Firstly, I was in India for a month very recently and I need to get all that down; I need it processed. In a crazy whatever jumble - like processed cheese rather than fully matured, perhaps, but at least it's there and I am bursting. I've stopped writing in sentences and diary and moleskine are crammed full of snippets that are pretty futile by themselves, unless they were to be displayed /as/ snippets in a glass cabinet, at least with some overall artistic direction, I don't know. I have been clumsy and kamikaze with my thoughts, which are less thoughts and more impressions. Camera-less I took to the conscious release of memories, on the basis that *letting go* is always a good thing. I'm not sure I'd advise it. The idea wasn't really to let go of everything that has ever happened to me, but to Actually Start This Time and get rid of old ideas and unfinished projects. Because what I really want to do - or need to do - is to build something out of the scraps of impression of everything that's happened to me and everything I've ever thought.
The need to create is also the need to communicate, yes? 'Create' in the sense of transferring some sort of meaning, I don't mean welding gates or whatever. How sad is art that's never received/read/audienceless. Although the artist would probably have enough imagination to keep him going.
Patriotism (different subject) - yes, I am very patriotic sometimes. I recall an evening last month when I managed to feel patriotic about India, Scotland and Great Britain. All in one evening. Yay. It was the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Songs especially are very powerful.
Okay, enough.
I'm reading this book. It's okay. Nothing special. If you were going to write one book, you wouldn't write this one. If you were going to write on book a year, you still wouldn't write this one. Maybe if you were on number 100 and had run out of meaningful things to write about. Three girls, a couple of decades ago, not being very interesting. You know, I hate it when people in books don't speak like real people. She's actually not that bad at description. And she can craft a novel (a bland one, where all the characters are coated in a blandness - like Pat in the Scotland Street novels.Why do people like drawing young girls like this?) And the
romances are predictable and unrealistic.
Restlessness.
And did those feet, in ancient times.
I will not cease from mental strife, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.
What a literally awesome tune. "Tune".
'God save the queen' - now there's an uninspiring song.
Oh, I think it was during the national anthem that my heart swelled for the UK - although there were audible groans as we were asked to stand up.
Well helloooooo.......
triumphant and joyful ladida - as if, for example, the host of a radio show had been held captive in Afghanistan for 7 months and was now back on air.
So, I am listening to the Last Night of the Proms. I have SO much to tell you. Firstly, I was in India for a month very recently and I need to get all that down; I need it processed. In a crazy whatever jumble - like processed cheese rather than fully matured, perhaps, but at least it's there and I am bursting. I've stopped writing in sentences and diary and moleskine are crammed full of snippets that are pretty futile by themselves, unless they were to be displayed /as/ snippets in a glass cabinet, at least with some overall artistic direction, I don't know. I have been clumsy and kamikaze with my thoughts, which are less thoughts and more impressions. Camera-less I took to the conscious release of memories, on the basis that *letting go* is always a good thing. I'm not sure I'd advise it. The idea wasn't really to let go of everything that has ever happened to me, but to Actually Start This Time and get rid of old ideas and unfinished projects. Because what I really want to do - or need to do - is to build something out of the scraps of impression of everything that's happened to me and everything I've ever thought.
The need to create is also the need to communicate, yes? 'Create' in the sense of transferring some sort of meaning, I don't mean welding gates or whatever. How sad is art that's never received/read/audienceless. Although the artist would probably have enough imagination to keep him going.
Patriotism (different subject) - yes, I am very patriotic sometimes. I recall an evening last month when I managed to feel patriotic about India, Scotland and Great Britain. All in one evening. Yay. It was the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Songs especially are very powerful.
Okay, enough.
I'm reading this book. It's okay. Nothing special. If you were going to write one book, you wouldn't write this one. If you were going to write on book a year, you still wouldn't write this one. Maybe if you were on number 100 and had run out of meaningful things to write about. Three girls, a couple of decades ago, not being very interesting. You know, I hate it when people in books don't speak like real people. She's actually not that bad at description. And she can craft a novel (a bland one, where all the characters are coated in a blandness - like Pat in the Scotland Street novels.Why do people like drawing young girls like this?) And the
romances are predictable and unrealistic.
Restlessness.
And did those feet, in ancient times.
I will not cease from mental strife, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.
What a literally awesome tune. "Tune".
'God save the queen' - now there's an uninspiring song.
Oh, I think it was during the national anthem that my heart swelled for the UK - although there were audible groans as we were asked to stand up.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Friday, 4 January 2008
The Story of Christmas
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore wotness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.' ") And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Thanks be to God!
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore wotness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.' ") And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Thanks be to God!
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Happy New Year for yesterday
This is so ridiculous! The Festival Theatre website said it had e-mailed my password to my e-mail address, but it hasn't! Grrr.
My brother called this morning while I was still in bed, and I as the phone rang I thought 'it's Susie calling to ask me to supper, as it's Friday', and then I realised it wasn't Friday, it's Wednesday. Wednesday was a concept too remote from my life. What the heck is Wednesday? There's no such thing as Wednesday. This is what you think before you are fully awake.
My brother called this morning while I was still in bed, and I as the phone rang I thought 'it's Susie calling to ask me to supper, as it's Friday', and then I realised it wasn't Friday, it's Wednesday. Wednesday was a concept too remote from my life. What the heck is Wednesday? There's no such thing as Wednesday. This is what you think before you are fully awake.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
People.
People on the computer scare me. They are all sunny and bouncy and larger than life and !!!!lol :)hee hee xxx!!! I go on Facebook and think 'I don't know these people, do I have the right to talk to them?' Plus they're obviously busy having conversations with twenty different people and throwing snowballs at Sam and going sleighriding with Lisa, and being magic mushrooms and fiercely competing at pacman, and having the time of their lives dressed as snowmnen in magenta-painted nightclubs.
But no, Anjali, it's just Bob. You know Bob. You know Frodo. You know Lorna.
So this is how I meet people - I go out onto the street, I cross the road, I say to the man with his cap on the ground 'Do you know a guy called Scott? He used to sell the Big Issue here'. We are humans, are we not? With or without favourite quotes and travel map, pictures of Germander posted by others, and hatching christmas trees.
To the Rajasthani musician at the party in Jaipur - what are your favourite TV shows? Would you rather go barefoot, or do you wear sunglasses because the sun never sets over the British Empire? Do you think Christian guys are hotter? Do you appreciate Kerala Toast?
This goes out to all the human beings that I love - the ones of flesh and blood in their pre-make-up faces, who feel blank sometimes, who smile and who sometimes don't smile, and who sometimes are just there. And to the people who I don't know that well and am happy not to, but am content to just exchange smiles with when I see them, because you are a person and I am a person and isn't that cool?
And to the whole category of people who are special to me who I do not keep in regular contact with: people I've bumped into randomly - all my 'Festival friends' I met flyering on the Royal Mile - Danny and Nimesh, my adopted brother and cousin - Ricky and the guys I hung out with in Granada - Vladimir, who kept me entertained for an evening in Paris - and Scott, who seems to have disappeared.
At the end of Big Fish, the main guy gets carried down to the river, and all the people from his life are standing together, lining the way.
There is a work of art by Douglas Gordon in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which is just a list of the names of everyone he's ever met, stencilled in black on the wall nest to the stairs. I find this mindblowing and beautiful and moving. I often think that I should write a similar list, and I start to,in my head, and am overwhelmed by the sheer volume, and if you do it systematically you could get very bored. You'd be stuck thinking of the names of your year two classmates and wishing you were at the Delhi Trip. I think that what Douglas Gordon did was put them down as he remembered them.
You should do it. Maybe when you are feeling significant, or insignificant, or existential. Get back to me. It might change your life.
But totally, everybody - and this is a different issue - you should write on your walls in black felt tip. Anything that comes into your head.
I think that would be cool.
What you should do is have a 'graffiti room' - maybe two, one for visitors. You should have ( -she's getting excited now -) buckets of paint by the door. 'Thankyou so much for coming, there's paint by the door'. Perfect family activity! Bring all your friends!
I can just imagine the owner of the house wandering in when she's in need of cheering up and thinking....this is so stupid.
Anyway, back to the everyone-you've-ever-met thing. Imagine if, at the end of your life - or why then? Just randomly - everyone you'd ever met was gathered together. I love imagining this. But say this happened once every somebody's life, you'd probably keep getting called to go to these gatherings. You might not even recognise the person, but that would be cool. It would be an interesting experience. You might know other gathered people. You might meet some again and again at these gatherings. Would they all then come to yours, or would this not count as 'life'? Hmm, interesting question. But what you'd do would be to smile at the Main Person, as they walk past you looking amazed. It would be fun. And it would be accepted that no-one could take precedence or claim superiority as to how significant they were to the MP.
Conversely, it could be like a curtain call, with more significant people coming later, in which case there could be possible scraps between, say, wife and first love. No, I don't like that. The Gathered People would only ever look at the Main Person, so he could be utterly happy looking at both first love and wife, separately.
And before I go off to feel hungry: The Coma, by Alex Garland. Very good.
PS All these ideas are copyright! Copyright!
But no, Anjali, it's just Bob. You know Bob. You know Frodo. You know Lorna.
So this is how I meet people - I go out onto the street, I cross the road, I say to the man with his cap on the ground 'Do you know a guy called Scott? He used to sell the Big Issue here'. We are humans, are we not? With or without favourite quotes and travel map, pictures of Germander posted by others, and hatching christmas trees.
To the Rajasthani musician at the party in Jaipur - what are your favourite TV shows? Would you rather go barefoot, or do you wear sunglasses because the sun never sets over the British Empire? Do you think Christian guys are hotter? Do you appreciate Kerala Toast?
This goes out to all the human beings that I love - the ones of flesh and blood in their pre-make-up faces, who feel blank sometimes, who smile and who sometimes don't smile, and who sometimes are just there. And to the people who I don't know that well and am happy not to, but am content to just exchange smiles with when I see them, because you are a person and I am a person and isn't that cool?
And to the whole category of people who are special to me who I do not keep in regular contact with: people I've bumped into randomly - all my 'Festival friends' I met flyering on the Royal Mile - Danny and Nimesh, my adopted brother and cousin - Ricky and the guys I hung out with in Granada - Vladimir, who kept me entertained for an evening in Paris - and Scott, who seems to have disappeared.
At the end of Big Fish, the main guy gets carried down to the river, and all the people from his life are standing together, lining the way.
There is a work of art by Douglas Gordon in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which is just a list of the names of everyone he's ever met, stencilled in black on the wall nest to the stairs. I find this mindblowing and beautiful and moving. I often think that I should write a similar list, and I start to,in my head, and am overwhelmed by the sheer volume, and if you do it systematically you could get very bored. You'd be stuck thinking of the names of your year two classmates and wishing you were at the Delhi Trip. I think that what Douglas Gordon did was put them down as he remembered them.
You should do it. Maybe when you are feeling significant, or insignificant, or existential. Get back to me. It might change your life.
But totally, everybody - and this is a different issue - you should write on your walls in black felt tip. Anything that comes into your head.
I think that would be cool.
What you should do is have a 'graffiti room' - maybe two, one for visitors. You should have ( -she's getting excited now -) buckets of paint by the door. 'Thankyou so much for coming, there's paint by the door'. Perfect family activity! Bring all your friends!
I can just imagine the owner of the house wandering in when she's in need of cheering up and thinking....this is so stupid.
Anyway, back to the everyone-you've-ever-met thing. Imagine if, at the end of your life - or why then? Just randomly - everyone you'd ever met was gathered together. I love imagining this. But say this happened once every somebody's life, you'd probably keep getting called to go to these gatherings. You might not even recognise the person, but that would be cool. It would be an interesting experience. You might know other gathered people. You might meet some again and again at these gatherings. Would they all then come to yours, or would this not count as 'life'? Hmm, interesting question. But what you'd do would be to smile at the Main Person, as they walk past you looking amazed. It would be fun. And it would be accepted that no-one could take precedence or claim superiority as to how significant they were to the MP.
Conversely, it could be like a curtain call, with more significant people coming later, in which case there could be possible scraps between, say, wife and first love. No, I don't like that. The Gathered People would only ever look at the Main Person, so he could be utterly happy looking at both first love and wife, separately.
And before I go off to feel hungry: The Coma, by Alex Garland. Very good.
PS All these ideas are copyright! Copyright!
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Some enchanted evening (in which Anjali looks at shops)
No I feel sleepy I'm not inspired, arghgrrrrrrarghle zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Narcolepsy is when you fall asleep randomly, if the Rat Race is to be believed (and why not?) zzzzzzzz.
I've been watching the Sound of Music over and over again, sometimes with the director's commentary, and thinking things such as: this actually is a very good film, wow this guy's performance here is amazing, ahhhhhh. Also: when you see it as a child, the Baroness is evil personified, but now she is quite admirable even. See her especially in the 'calling it off' scene. And she looks so young! I'm sure that lots of guys I know would prefer her to Maria. But then, some of the guys I know are quite twisted. And I DON'T mean that as a compliment! Twisted in a way that is petty and self-absorbed. zzzzzzzzzzzz.
So I walk through the streets of Edinburgh as a love song to this city. Lights and glitter and sweet sweet smells, and everyone is out, everyone is happy. Everyone is wearing boots. I notice this because I am thinking about shoes, which I need to buy. I have spent more than a year in shoes I have never really liked; now finally they are falling apart. I go into shoe shops. I already have my eye on a few things. I'm never really sure how shoe shops work. Are you allowed to take things off the racks and try them on? Do you have to wait to be served? Do they have to bring them from a back room in boxes? Shoeboxes. Ha ha. I can't properly explain why I find that funny. I try some on but feel illegitimate in shoe shops, like they might shoo me away. Shoo. Pff. To be honest I feel like that in most shops. 'Who is this girl and what is she doing? She's doing it all wrong! How old is she anyway? Why is she by herself? Is she mocking us? Is she? ' This is what they are all thinking. Plus I am perpetually hungry, which makes me feel even more like a street urchin.
I put the shoes on, surreptitiously. People hover. I make funny faces to emphasise that I am thinking and know perfectly well what I'm doing. I shuffle my feet about a bit. Yes. Just buy them, otherwise you won't buy them, ergo you won't get them. Stand in line, smile, hand them over, yes yes I have a card, see, here in my hand, that's how much I know what I'm doing. In pin out. Oh thankyou. I never get round to saying 'no I don't need a bag', in time. So I walk out with this ridiculously large and posh-looking paper bag. It has stripes on it. What an idiot I feel. So here's the after-Office routine: take out shoes, put them in my bag, crush up lovely posh Office bag and put in bin. I have done this before. In August my chappals (flip flops) broke and I had to buy some more. In that case I think they went straight on my feet. Might I have been barefoot? It's definitely a possibility.
I need to buy clothes in general and jumpers in particular, I go into shops but there's nothing there that seems right, what am I looking for anyway? I don't know.
The Christmas market has lots of lovely jewellery, and bags, and scarves, and woolen hats. All of which I would love to have but none of which is strictly necessary.
Fopp, and I look at books, because it's the good books in Fopp, and I need to read. What am I doing, surely there's somewhere I need to be? I need to buy a jumper, and presents, and things, and CDs, and DVDs, but 'books' wasn't on the list. I need to buy a life, that's what I need. I need all the paraphernalia of a personality. Labels to stick on the outside. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Fight Club, the book! I pick it up and get drawn into it at many points. It is basically the film, on paper. All the stuff that whatsisname (yes, see how well I know this thing) says over the top. I love this book. I love this - thing. But surely I should just buy the DVD. I looked at DVDs yesterday, while I was really looking at CDs, or shoes, or something. I want to own some DVDs. I looked at Garden State - yes, I can handle it now - it has nothing to do with anyone else. I even looked at Donnie Darko. And Down with Love...to be honest, they didn't have very many there, it was the little HMV. The Notebook? Pff. I was actually looking for Havana Nights, but it wasn't there. zzzzzzzzzzz
And goodness, there are a lot of rahs in Edinburgh. I'm not sure whether I'd noticed this before, but now I'm sort of tuned in to rahs. And I was walking down a street and looked up randomly and saw Jack Wills and thought hah. Hah. Hah. And in my quest for clothes I went into Miss Selfridge (?) and realised that most of the people I know in Durham would not be out of place there. The music was very Durham. How interesting, that Durham is a side to Edinburgh where I would not normally go. If that makes sense. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I bought two books. One was only three pounds - 'A young man is brutally assaulted late at night in an Underground train ...on discharge from the hospital, Carl picks up the threads of his daily life...until he starts to notice strange leaps in his perception of time, distortions in his experience. Is he truly reacting with the outside world, or might he be terribly mistaken?' And it's illustrated by woodcuts. So why not?
Narcolepsy is when you fall asleep randomly, if the Rat Race is to be believed (and why not?) zzzzzzzz.
I've been watching the Sound of Music over and over again, sometimes with the director's commentary, and thinking things such as: this actually is a very good film, wow this guy's performance here is amazing, ahhhhhh. Also: when you see it as a child, the Baroness is evil personified, but now she is quite admirable even. See her especially in the 'calling it off' scene. And she looks so young! I'm sure that lots of guys I know would prefer her to Maria. But then, some of the guys I know are quite twisted. And I DON'T mean that as a compliment! Twisted in a way that is petty and self-absorbed. zzzzzzzzzzzz.
So I walk through the streets of Edinburgh as a love song to this city. Lights and glitter and sweet sweet smells, and everyone is out, everyone is happy. Everyone is wearing boots. I notice this because I am thinking about shoes, which I need to buy. I have spent more than a year in shoes I have never really liked; now finally they are falling apart. I go into shoe shops. I already have my eye on a few things. I'm never really sure how shoe shops work. Are you allowed to take things off the racks and try them on? Do you have to wait to be served? Do they have to bring them from a back room in boxes? Shoeboxes. Ha ha. I can't properly explain why I find that funny. I try some on but feel illegitimate in shoe shops, like they might shoo me away. Shoo. Pff. To be honest I feel like that in most shops. 'Who is this girl and what is she doing? She's doing it all wrong! How old is she anyway? Why is she by herself? Is she mocking us? Is she? ' This is what they are all thinking. Plus I am perpetually hungry, which makes me feel even more like a street urchin.
I put the shoes on, surreptitiously. People hover. I make funny faces to emphasise that I am thinking and know perfectly well what I'm doing. I shuffle my feet about a bit. Yes. Just buy them, otherwise you won't buy them, ergo you won't get them. Stand in line, smile, hand them over, yes yes I have a card, see, here in my hand, that's how much I know what I'm doing. In pin out. Oh thankyou. I never get round to saying 'no I don't need a bag', in time. So I walk out with this ridiculously large and posh-looking paper bag. It has stripes on it. What an idiot I feel. So here's the after-Office routine: take out shoes, put them in my bag, crush up lovely posh Office bag and put in bin. I have done this before. In August my chappals (flip flops) broke and I had to buy some more. In that case I think they went straight on my feet. Might I have been barefoot? It's definitely a possibility.
I need to buy clothes in general and jumpers in particular, I go into shops but there's nothing there that seems right, what am I looking for anyway? I don't know.
The Christmas market has lots of lovely jewellery, and bags, and scarves, and woolen hats. All of which I would love to have but none of which is strictly necessary.
Fopp, and I look at books, because it's the good books in Fopp, and I need to read. What am I doing, surely there's somewhere I need to be? I need to buy a jumper, and presents, and things, and CDs, and DVDs, but 'books' wasn't on the list. I need to buy a life, that's what I need. I need all the paraphernalia of a personality. Labels to stick on the outside. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Fight Club, the book! I pick it up and get drawn into it at many points. It is basically the film, on paper. All the stuff that whatsisname (yes, see how well I know this thing) says over the top. I love this book. I love this - thing. But surely I should just buy the DVD. I looked at DVDs yesterday, while I was really looking at CDs, or shoes, or something. I want to own some DVDs. I looked at Garden State - yes, I can handle it now - it has nothing to do with anyone else. I even looked at Donnie Darko. And Down with Love...to be honest, they didn't have very many there, it was the little HMV. The Notebook? Pff. I was actually looking for Havana Nights, but it wasn't there. zzzzzzzzzzz
And goodness, there are a lot of rahs in Edinburgh. I'm not sure whether I'd noticed this before, but now I'm sort of tuned in to rahs. And I was walking down a street and looked up randomly and saw Jack Wills and thought hah. Hah. Hah. And in my quest for clothes I went into Miss Selfridge (?) and realised that most of the people I know in Durham would not be out of place there. The music was very Durham. How interesting, that Durham is a side to Edinburgh where I would not normally go. If that makes sense. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I bought two books. One was only three pounds - 'A young man is brutally assaulted late at night in an Underground train ...on discharge from the hospital, Carl picks up the threads of his daily life...until he starts to notice strange leaps in his perception of time, distortions in his experience. Is he truly reacting with the outside world, or might he be terribly mistaken?' And it's illustrated by woodcuts. So why not?
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
'This stereo record can be played on mono reproducers...'
I’m listening to the blues... hey, I remember this feeling! A world of happiness and pleasant taste. What does it remind me of….my home in April, maybe, and boxes of records, and a future of possibility. My summer stretches before me like a snake before its tail. What a dissociated blog this is.
I am doing nothing all afternoon. The next woman I marry, she gotta go working to bring me some dough. I been mistreated, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Where have I heard so much of the blues? Why does it feel so much like home? (Correction: not like home, like a tropical island I spent holidays on as a child. No: like a bar I worked in one summer - cleaning the floors. Enough. It’s not important and you’re confusing me.) And why is there suffering in the world? – to produce good music.
And it’s pitch black outside at five o’clock. I’m okay with this, as long as there is company and things to do involving light and warmth and preferably the Great Hall, such as meals, and panto rehearsal, which often also involves dancing, and messing about with brooms (we – the pirates – are doing Stomp! A not-too-exciting version, but still.) That makes me happy. Although I have done nothing all afternoon, which frustrates me but to cope I will be blaa-zay about it; it doesn’t matter, I did have classes all morning.
I’ve worked it out: I have been bluesy on the piano, before. That is impressive. I think I was quite good. I don’t actually play the piano.
Hebron people: helloooooo! Meg, I will write to you. Glori, you too, sorry I haven’t replied yet to your facebook message; Essie, sorry I haven’t contacted you in any way for ages, thanks for your newsletters, you’re at such an exciting stage in your life. ALL of you are! So am I! David S, I’ve been planning to write on your wall for ages. The same goes for lots of other people as well. I can’t mention everybody by name. Niru. Everybody: I’ve decided to get my hair cut quite short. It hasn’t happened yet but will, hold me accountable. Lots of love to EVryone, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am doing nothing all afternoon. The next woman I marry, she gotta go working to bring me some dough. I been mistreated, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Where have I heard so much of the blues? Why does it feel so much like home? (Correction: not like home, like a tropical island I spent holidays on as a child. No: like a bar I worked in one summer - cleaning the floors. Enough. It’s not important and you’re confusing me.) And why is there suffering in the world? – to produce good music.
And it’s pitch black outside at five o’clock. I’m okay with this, as long as there is company and things to do involving light and warmth and preferably the Great Hall, such as meals, and panto rehearsal, which often also involves dancing, and messing about with brooms (we – the pirates – are doing Stomp! A not-too-exciting version, but still.) That makes me happy. Although I have done nothing all afternoon, which frustrates me but to cope I will be blaa-zay about it; it doesn’t matter, I did have classes all morning.
I’ve worked it out: I have been bluesy on the piano, before. That is impressive. I think I was quite good. I don’t actually play the piano.
Hebron people: helloooooo! Meg, I will write to you. Glori, you too, sorry I haven’t replied yet to your facebook message; Essie, sorry I haven’t contacted you in any way for ages, thanks for your newsletters, you’re at such an exciting stage in your life. ALL of you are! So am I! David S, I’ve been planning to write on your wall for ages. The same goes for lots of other people as well. I can’t mention everybody by name. Niru. Everybody: I’ve decided to get my hair cut quite short. It hasn’t happened yet but will, hold me accountable. Lots of love to EVryone, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
two days before leaving
I'm not sure about the fabric I bought today. I'm not sure that I want a whole dress in it. It's not the sort of thing I would wear. But then after I've made it, maybe, (yes, everybody, I'm making a dress!) I could paint on it. Write on it. Paint it black.
I can imagine the fabric draped over the buildings in Dublin Street; that would be fantastic. I thought this as I walked back from the last flamenco class, where I told no-one it was my last. 'See you.' I changed a ten pound note for eight pound coins from a homeless guy. I said to hypothetical future friends, 'I only like giving money to beggars when they go 'oh tha's lovely yer a lovely girrul, have a nice night darrlin' ', which I can't really write properly, and which isn't completely true. And then I rolled the Scottish accent around in my mouth for a bit, and thought of how for me homeless guys have this accent, because Edinburgh is my first real experience of Britain. And then I thought how sad it is that I am leaving, Edinburgh, my first British town, with its buildings I can't quite come to terms with, and then I imagined my orange fabric draped over the building in front of me. And yet I am quite sick of Edinburgh. And this too is sad, when you think about it.
I can imagine the fabric draped over the buildings in Dublin Street; that would be fantastic. I thought this as I walked back from the last flamenco class, where I told no-one it was my last. 'See you.' I changed a ten pound note for eight pound coins from a homeless guy. I said to hypothetical future friends, 'I only like giving money to beggars when they go 'oh tha's lovely yer a lovely girrul, have a nice night darrlin' ', which I can't really write properly, and which isn't completely true. And then I rolled the Scottish accent around in my mouth for a bit, and thought of how for me homeless guys have this accent, because Edinburgh is my first real experience of Britain. And then I thought how sad it is that I am leaving, Edinburgh, my first British town, with its buildings I can't quite come to terms with, and then I imagined my orange fabric draped over the building in front of me. And yet I am quite sick of Edinburgh. And this too is sad, when you think about it.
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
Something else I found in 'drafts'
If I was American, I would be a journalist. That is the role I would play in society - or perhaps it would be opting out of society by commenting on it. Exposing hypocrisy and celebrating life; the USA's best people are its journalists; they are the most sensible and they actually think about things, it's their job; also American magazines have a font that I love.
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