Wednesday 19th of November, 2008
tends towards gratifying
Up, breakfast, sit, etc.
Feeling washed out today.
In to Walker late as usual, though I do manage to complete the stuff I wanted to complete, just in time.
Various lifts with Agéd P get me to the SW1 Bijou Studioette with mixer, mics, guitar and VG88. I'm sort of assisting/engineering the live portion of Phil's show, with appearances from a Chinese accordianist and a Japanese flute player.
The accordianist is interviewed and plays. There's also a jam of sorts, although the other two can't hear what I'm playing. I suspected as much, though it seems to go off quite well. They're that good. Then the flautist/shakuhachi player is interviewed and plays. Then we jam again. Being able to hear ourselves perhaps takes the edge off it, I don't know.
Then there's packing up, a quick coffee and chat about Japan (the flautist is from Kansai and will be getting married in Kobe in December), and I catch the bus home laden with stuff. At Vauxhall Bus Station we all have to get off and get on another bus. After a while the new driver arrives and sets off, swearing a lot and sucking his teeth noisily.
Home. Greet H, drink tea.
Later on there's the third part of the series about picture books. Occasionally I say about a participant "I know him/her", which tends towards gratifying.
Tuesday 18th of November, 2008
The whole limping thing
Up at 6:01. I should mention that. Don't do anything too strenuous this morning as my leg still seems to want to bend backwards. Guitar practice, though, which isn't leg-based.
Catch a bus. The bus shelter is occupied by a group of people who each have their own can of Tennants Extra at 10:30 in the morning. One of them is dancing around slightly, and keeps trying (and failing, I have to say) to make intimidating eye-contact with me. Perhaps he's trying to start a fight, I don't know.
Into Walker for more Maisying. I'll assume that it's coming to a completion, but I can't be sure.
Get back home and dither all evening, watching a bit of TV.
Riveting day, I know. The whole limping thing is a bit disturbing.
Monday 17th of November, 2008
fascinating cultural unusualnesses
Oversleep slightly, so all the bits of the morning are late and in the wrong order. At least breakfast is at the right time (in fact slightly earlier than usual, in the dark). After H leaves I go for a run, then stretch, then guitar practice.
The run was probably a bad idea, as my knee is slightly buggered. In fact it seems to be trying to bend backwards, flamingo-style. I'm not a flamingo. I checked.
More Pusskins scanning and colouring in, and (after lunch) a trip to the supermarket. The people behind me at the till seem to be engaged in a lot of fascinating cultural unusualnesses, and trying to perpetrate a scam, persisting in a peculiar and complicated patter despite the fact that the cashier doesn't especially care.
Ho hum.
Home. More colouring. Also phone in to say that I won't be going to the Movements class tonight on account of my knee trying to bend backwards.
Then more colouring with dinner (delicious donburi by H) in there somewhere.
After I've done the colouring-in I allow myself to listen to some stuff I've done in Logic.
Sunday 16th of November, 2008
the pub I first thought of
Another very off day - get up too late for breakfast, and go straight to an early lunch. When I discover from my iphone that I've gone the wrong way for the pub I was heading for, we go to the George and have Sunday roast, then head back via the Charles Dickens, which was the pub I first thought of. I should have turned back and gone straight there, actually - nice and quiet and a row of pumps of beers I've never heard of before, including one called Naked Ladies and another (5%) beer called R.I.P. As we arrive people come in from the art gallery over the road and have vegetarian roasts with mineral water.
After that we go home, and I pick up some cheap cake which we have with tea and more Jeeves and Wooster.
Then some dithering.
Late tea / dinner substitute: cheese from Borough Market with home-made apple chutney (which Ben passed to H on Thursday). Delicious.
I spend the evening with Logic, creating some more lugubrious stuff.
Friday 14th of November, 2008
a clearer notion of my ambitions
Suitably vague Saturday. Late rise, croissants (from Borough Market - vast and delicious), dithering.
Juan comes round at 12:00 as H is going for a stroll, and we have a long catch-up session. He's also got MP3s (or an mp3, at least, and a long one too), of my songs.
By the time he leaves, I have acquired from somewhere a clearer notion of my ambitions, at least for the next few months.
More dithering in the afternoon, and instrumentals in Logic.
Also I go for a quick run.
Fish and chips and Jeeves and Wooster and beer in the evening.
Thursday 13th of November, 2008
pin it down too much to one meaning, the others evaporate
Up at six, sit, breakfast, H out, then I go running (the weather really is glorious at this time in the morning), yoga, prepare myself, make a packed lunch. Eventually get to Walker when I usually do (late).
Maisying, with a lie-down at lunchtime.
After work, I go with Ben to the Barbican where we meet up with H for the Scott Walker evening - songs, mostly from The Drift, with a couple from Tilt, with full band and orchestra, other singers (some famous) standing in for Scott.
The music is as upsetting and alienating as on the CD, but often superb instrumentally, the two tracks from Tilt (Patriot and Farmer in the City) especially. However there seems to be a rule that the more famous the singer, the less their voice can do - Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn are swallowed by the arrangements, Dot Allison and Gavin Friday fare better (with some cabaret chops), but the highly trained classical singers are all over it and blow them away, rather.
The group is at the back of the stage, the orchestra corralled under the stage, which has an interesting alienating effect. Lots of visuals, often too literal. Nice use of iconic imagery with a giant Elvic shadow cast on the screen behind the singer in Jesse, for example (spoiled a bit by the giant shadow of a stagehand bending down to pick something up, straying into "shot"); but often the representation is too literal - on one level Patriot may be about a drunk chasing a newspaper dancing on the wind, on another it's about the first Gulf War; pin it down too much to one meaning, the others evaporate.
As the show is finishing, a few people near us begin to boo. Why? The show was fully and accurately described in all the promotional literature. It effectively had a health warning. I have some qualms, but it's very nearly a unique event (three performances of which this was the first), and I don't grudge the things that I feel were less successful for the opportunity to see the things that were more so.
The Edge out of U2 is in the audience, dressed as The Edge out of U2, which surprises me. I'd expect him (or any famous performer) not to dress in their uniform offstage, but perhaps that's silly.
Someone else I saw in the audience looks exactly like someone I knew 17 years ago, but the way they looked 17 years ago. And anyway, they'd be in New York.
After the show fail to find somewhere to have a coffee and catch our respective buses.
H and I return home to tea and jellied bean jam and internet.
Wednesday 12th of November, 2008
When all else fails.
Get up and do stuff as usual. In a generally bad mood all day. Mostly this is something I carry around with me, not something I act out. Interesting to observe the way it works. At the very least there's breathing going on, so if all else fails I pay attention to that. Also notice the way I'm in contact with the floor, wherever possible. When all else fails.
Into Walker to do Maisying, and such gets done, popping out for a sandwich at lunchtime, followed by a welcome lie-down.
Back at the flat about 19:30 and H has made dinner. After dinner I give in to my more animal self and go out and buy chocolate, which isn't helping the figure. Then do some Pusskins corrections and various font corrections while watching Shada the lost Dr Who story (nixed by industrial action in 1979-ish). Contains some appalling acting from the supporting cast, and chunks that have to be narrated by a hammy Tom Baker in the now-long-gone Museum of the Moving Image.
Anyway, either the chocolate, the breaking of the work log-jam or the Dr Who (or possibly a combination of all of thesse) cheers me up somewhat.
