July 30, 2003 2:21 AM
Ancient Egypt is my true home. This may be why I am always in profile. The Ba, an entity similar to what we call soul "...was thought to spend the day assuming various forms in which it could be useful to the deceased..." ( The Book of the Dead). Updating that ancient tradition, I see that it fits my present situation perfectly. It's not the deceased I'm useful to but, shall we say, the somnolent or unawakened - such as my other half? And yes of course I spend the day assuming various forms, why else would I become a blogger?
|
 |
------ Recently I
chanced upon three quotes that really struck home:
|
One cannot do great things, one can only do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa |
...It was time to write from the wordless inside. He would use his confusion and uncertainty where he had previously used his intellect and his wit. He would cease to describe and begin to create. Note the date. Note the bravery. He was 40 years old... Keith Ridgway on Samuel Beckett (The Guardian Review 19/07/03) |
...She is a writer who refused to bore herself. Nothing is decoratively arranged to suggest atmosphere or a sense of place or to set a scene. Everything on the page is there because the narrator perceives it as doing something... Deborah Levy on Violette Leduc (The Guardian Weekend 26/07/03) |
July 28, 2003 9:32 PM
Ireland was picture-book
green, glazed by the raindrops that kept falling on our heads,
as you see in Natalie's not bad watercolour. Irish clouds
are exceptionally beautiful and you can rely on being able
to admire them every day. We were granted a few helpings
of caramel sunshine, its rarity making it all the more delicious,
but the day we went to Galway for the Arts
Festival turned out to be deluge day. Wind-whipped sheets
of rain, blasts of cold clammy air penetrating every layer
of clothing. The Irish, and foreigners who have grown accustomed
to the Irish climate, don't seem to mind such rude behaviour
from the weather - they forgive it. Not me. I snarl and complain
and shiver accusingly. But then I didn't go there for the
weather. Time spent with kid brother is always invigorating
and illuminating, wherever in the world it may be. At the
Festival, we were in the packed audience applauding Tom
Tomorrow (Dan Perkins) who showed examples of his cartoon
strips and talked about his role as persistent thorn in the
too well-fed flesh of American politics, especially irksome
to the Bush family dynasty. Tom/Dan deserves all the support
he can get: check out his website, buy his new book, tell
him Augustine sent you!
Came back to find that Heather has
given generous wall-space to Natalie too.
H'm.Call me paranoid but I always have a nagging suspicion that N might do
away with me. Well she won't succeed, not if my tiny fame continues to grow
apace. I've been blogged by
the fabulous Cynthia
Korzekwa and the splendidly annoying
white angry middle-aged balding man has put me on his toe-tapping 'Who
Are YOU!!!' front page, while deeply thoughtful Kurt over at Coffee
Sutras has also joined my little band of faithful visitors. Thank you
to all. Back to the neglected gnovel now.
July 20, 2003 12 AM
Why
do we crave it? What would we be without it?
July 19, 2003 2:47 PM
As a break from
my habitual states of enthusiasm, excitment, anger or inertia,
I decided to attempt an intellectual exercise. Below is the
result, a poem in which each word is a separate link. Not
as easy as it looks.
I hereby declare open a competition (everyone wins) to create linkimproems - improvised
poems made entirely of single links. I challenge you to invent your own and
send them to me (no attachments, please)). Then I'll post them here. The
only rule is: They must be short - about eight lines max.
I'm going to Ireland tomorrow for a week. Hope to find a full box when I
get back
linkimproem
No.1 by Augustine
Ecologics
Plaid-- label--reads:
" Highland --Spring "
blue-- mountains
pink-- clouds
" Natural-- Mineral-- Water "
Alas!
plastic-- bottle .
July 16, 2003 7:38 PM
Excellent news this
morning: A space has
been created by Heather in SoulFood
Cafe for some of the paintings by Blanche, my mother
(by the way, her middle name was Augustine). Here she is
below, 
still
beautiful at ninety. Encouraged by me and nagged by N, she
began painting at the age of ninety-four. Matisse would have
loved her. She not only had panache but joie de vivre by
the bucketful and a sense of colour only achieved by those
who have managed to reach maturity while retaining their
childlike spirit. 
She
died two years ago on August 19th. We miss her every day.
The painting on the right is
Odalisque
by Blanche, 1999. Acrylic on paper.
35 X 65 cms
Strange dream last night:
A blogger announces that he's been cut off from
his source. He is distraught because the connection is part of his own brain
and he's now completely lost. In the dream, I see a small picture on the
left side of my screen - a sketchy semi-circle with a few thin wires or antennae
sticking up. It could be the top of the blogger's head. The
feeling was disturbing and dramatic, as though such a thing couldn't possibly
happen and if it did, it was terrible.
July 15, 2003 10:34
AM
Do you think I'm a cute, loveable, ineffectual creature?
Well you're wrong on all counts. I can be angry, extremely angry, justifiably
angry. 
Yesterday's Independent had
a story about
the letter which Robert Kelly has sent to 10 Downing Street: "Mr.
Blair, I hold you personally responsible for my son's death. You should stand
down." 18-year old paratrooper Andrew Kelly was killed in Iraq and
his father blames the Prime Minister for his son's death in an 'unjustified'
war, calling on him to resign. Mr. Kelly is not a pacifist but believes Blair
was guilty of an inexplicable decision in sending British troops to war against
Iraq. He says : "...it is not a letter of hate or anger - it is just
a letter of feelings, very strong feelings. My son would be here now if war
hadn't been declared." 
Well,
I am angry on his behalf and on behalf of all the other innocents of whatever
nationality, race or religion who lost their lives, or limbs, or minds, or
homes, or families, or futures, in this most unjustifiable of wars, whose
after-shocks and chaos could have been predicted but were ignored. Just as
Mssrs. Blair and Bush & Co. continue to ignore or respond only with lies
and rehearsed platitudes to all those who cry out in sorrow and fury at the
wrongs committed in the name of 'righteousness'.
This remarkable AP photo of Tony Blair's shadows, published in The Independent on July 12th inspired me to speculate on what his three alter egos might be saying. Anybody want to offer alternative captions?
July 13, 2003 2:32 PM
The amazing Soulfood
Cafe, which I discovered thanks to the brilliant Cassandra has
put us on its front page! And that's not all: the Cafe's
owner and life-force Heather
Blakey is making space for us in its Artists' Loft.
So look out Australia, here we come. 
'Amazing',
'brilliant'... what banal adjectives to describe some
of the wonders I'm happening upon in the extraordinary
blogging world, where firm friendships are formed between
kindred strangers and where a light bulb goes on in your
head merely at the click of a link. If I fail to give
due praise, brickbats, or descriptions of those sites
which enter my mental screen, that's because this blog,
as you know by now, is the work of an alter-egoist or
egotist. And if you think that's shameful, maybe it's
because you're not listening to your own little Alter-You
crying "Let me outta here!"
I'm glad to see that Robert
Paterson is following my example and will allow his dog, Jay, to have
a dogblog of his own. 
This
raises an interesting question: will Jay's blog be Jay's alter ego speaking
and if so, would the alter be, for instance, a cat? Or will it be Robert's
alter ego - in that case, a dog? Wait a minute, that could be misinterpreted
- some stupid people use 'dog' as an insult, as in: 'she's a dog'. Let's
be clear: I intend no insult to Rob Paterson, another kindred soul whose
insightful blog I regularly visit. Here's a picture of my new buddy, Jay,
from Rob's blog where
my picture appears too.
July 11, 2003 2:10
AM
Natalie
was having dinner with two close friends in a restaurant
last night. They were discussing visual versus verbal. Surprisingly,
she was presenting my point of view for a change. Of course
I was there too but could not be seen or heard above the
noise of their conversation and of the boisterous adjoining
tables. As usual in the three-dimensional world, much too
much is going on and not sufficient attention is paid to
amazing things like, for instance, the perma-smile on the
face of a waitress. They did notice but did not realize its
relevance to their discussion: the image of that smile is
now fixed in their memories whereas the words spoken around
the table.... where are they now?
July 9, 2003 5:23 PM
I've done it: moved the gnovel over to a new page. Click on Augustine's Graphic Novel here or on the left-hand index and you're there. Comments please. If you have nothing to say, I won't mind. Yes I will. Meanwhile, here's an onion I drew to liven up today's post. The significance of this object will soon become clear in the gnovel.
July 8, 2003 6:51 PM
Wondering if the graphic novel should scroll down or sideways? If it's sideways then I've got to transfer it to a new page so it'll have enough room. Maybe I should move it to my archive which is empty at the moment. Then I can continue with the blog over here. But will I have anything to say in the blog if I'm putting everything in the novel? If I continue with the novel here then I can't put the latest post first, it must read sequentially. So you'd need to scroll down and down and down. Which means moving over to the archive all that's on this page so far..... Suggestions anybody? Oh never mind.
July 5, 2003
I realized that
it takes me longer than expected to create an installment
of my opus. So I'll insert just one frame from it today.
But the key is that there will be two parallel stories running
simultaneously - one fiction, one fact. 
COMMENTS
July 3, 2003 12:13 AM
We've reached a compromise. N says she'll stay out of my way if I insert some of her homilies into my blog now and then. She seems to think I need her counselling and that without it I'll get distracted, never finish what I start etc. etc. Look who's calling the kettle black! Anyhow, I've agreed to feature her Seven Steps today. Spoken all together they sound like: EEEEEEH!
