March 24, 2008 SOME ROADS LEAD TO... ROME, and that's where I'm going this Thursday for five days. My sister has invited me to help her move to a new apartment and I will also be enjoying the company of my niece and her family, so there won't be much time left for memory-lane walking. I haven't been back to Rome for at least fifteen years and that was just overnight. The significant time before that, well, it's mentioned in recent chapters of my autobio - which reminds me, I must return to that, um, gapped project soon. Arrivederci. March 23, 2008 RESURRECTION It's in the moments when we are in love, from whatever inspiration - a person, a poem, a picture, a tree, a particular kind of light or sound - actually within love, surrounded by it, that's when we are resurrected. Those fragments of self which we don't need fall away like dead skin and in that moment, the moment we step inside love, we are complete, nothing missing. Without such moments, we are a little bit dead. Perhaps more than a little bit. Whatever the facts may be in historical terms, or in religious, symbolic, mythological terms, to me that is the Resurrection message, as it applies to ordinary daily life. It's hopeful because the ability to enter love is one which every human being has and thus links us to every other human being. It's the one thing which makes us all the same and at the same time confirms our uniqueness. Every individual's experience of love is different yet we all speak the same language when we try to express it.
I'm in love with Ethiopian art. The above is Jesus Christ, the Transfiguration, from an early 19th Century scroll. It's from the book Ethiopian Magic Scrolls . March 21, 2008 GOOD FRIDAY
Whatever your religion, beliefs or non-beliefs, the fact is that somewhere on this planet today, at this moment and at every moment of every day, someone is being crucified by someone else. A man, a woman, a child, an old person. Suffering unimaginable physical and mental torture inflicted by others who know not what they do. Or who know, but do it anyway. A good Friday to reflect on the ordinary reality of evil and on the extraordinary surreality of forgiveness. March 19, 2008 MIND THE GAP I hate leaving long gaps of time between blog posts but I have this puritanical conviction that I should have something to say or to show before I blog and sometimes I have nothing to say. So time goes by and pretty soon a whole week has passed, or two weeks, and the gap becomes a crack, a canyon, a fault. I'm wondering if the gap isn't merely fear? Well, fear is never merely. I'm wondering if maybe it's a habit with me, this fearful leaving of gaps. Because it's what I do on a regular basis. Take the keyboard sitting in the other room, covered by an ethnic shawl to keep the dust off. I bought that keyboard at a sale - can it be fifteen years ago? Whenever. I was wildly excited and decided I would compose songs. I would start from scratch, re-learn how to read music (piano lessons aged about six but didn't touch an instrument since) and then I would do my own thing. So I enrolled in a beginners' keyboard evening class and was doing pretty well for about a year. Then came the gap. I practiced less and less because, I said, I didn't have time. I had a contract for a book and there wasn't time to practice, I said. So I dropped out of the class and I even stopped fooling around on my lovely keyboard. I covered it with an ethnic shawl. But I can't cover my guilt, fear. Fearguilt. Guiltfear. The gap has stretched so wide that it's almost an ocean. All in the mind.
March 13, 2008 AN ALPHABETIC SOUNDSCAPE I'm not sure I know the difference between a podcast and a video that's not a podcast or a recording that's not a video but anyway here's something that could be either or neither. The digitally painted alphabet is one I first posted on April 27, 2005. Blog birthday five coming up next month. Still having fun trying things out, with no precise goal in mind. Dada dada dada. March 9, 2008 STILLS FROM ALTERED REALITY Some of the images in the "Alternative Reality" video on March 1st went by too fast. They were so reminiscent of ancient Egypt and of etchings or engravings that I wanted to slow them down, the better to examine them. So I've made another version and posted it here . March 7, 2008 A POEM TO GO WITH THE SEASIDE SAGA
Listen while you read. March 5, 2008 MORE OF THE DAY BY THE SEASIDE Thanks to Jean (tasting rhubarb ) for her comment which led me to make a strip from the movie of the painting of the story of the incident.
March 4, 2008 A DAY AT THE SEASIDE BUT NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT I haven't been to the sea, at least not lately and I'm going to leave this movie unexplained. Since the painting is large (125cms X 95cms) I thought I could film as though I were moving inside it, but I should have used a tripod and I should have waited for daylight instead of using electric light which causes colours to go pinkish. Those mistakes aside, I did find a way to draw the opening sequence from behind a sheet of paper. Editing the video and making the soundtrack are what I enjoy the most. March 1, 1008 A MOVIE FOR INDY'S BIRTHDAY Dedicated to my dear, talented and lovely niece and friend Indira since it's her birthday today. What I did was to crawl around the floor on my stomach, resting the camcorder on a thick book which I pushed slowly in front of me (this explains the jerkiness, un-intended). I wanted to film the room from the position of a worm or mouse. When I looked at the movie on my computer, it was too realistic so I fiddled around inside iMovie until it seemed more graphic than photographic. Then I moved to Garage Band and made up the music on a virtual keyboard. It's not bad, but I'll do better next time. |
