I just thought I experienced the most amazing coincidence ever. I’m painting away, iTunes blaring in the background, when David Bowie’s cover of the Pixies song “Cactus” comes on. What should come on after it but… Cactus, by the Pixies. “WOW!” I thought, “out of all the 16,334 songs on my hard disk… what are the odds of that?”
It was only when I heard another song called… “Cactus”, by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, followed by yet another “Cactus”, by the Dog Faced Hermans, that I realised I was listening to my library in order of song title, and not, as I’d thought, listening on random play.
Must go now. “Cadaverous Mastication” by Meshuggah just came on.
Haiku is a place
I’m told it’s in Hawaii
I’ll not likely go
Just been out and about in the snow, posting letters, collecting Rowan and Lola. It’s damn slippy out there, but at least I kept moving, which is more than I can say for most of the drivers I saw. My, how I chortled, as I watched their little wheels spinning round and around and around as their big bodies went a-nowhere.
Our builders just left - the last one to go was waiting for a lift from
a mate from Stocksbridge (North of Sheffield, edge of t’moors). When he
arrived Gill quipped “had a good drive”. He replied sullenly “I’ve just
crashed at the end of your road”. Oops.
We’re also waiting for some radiators to be delivered (quelle irony). They
were supposed to deliver this morning. I rang at 2pm and the depot said
that the driver had been “hammering at the door” at 1.30. What’s wrong
with the doorbell, I ask? And, as Gill, I & six builders were all in at
1.30, in fact I took a delivery of organic vegetables at 1.30, I think
somebody would have heard him. They conceded that he might have gone to
the wrong house.
Then ten minutes ago the depot rang, to say that the driver was having
trouble finding our house (every fucking driver has trouble finding our
house. For god’s sake, it’s not that hard. Haven’t they heard of
streetmap.co.uk). We gave him directions. Five minutes later they rang
up again “he’s at the end of your road, only somebody’s just driven into
the side of him”.
So Gill walked the couple-of-hundred metres down the road to find him. But he decided not to risk our icy little byway after having so much trouble on the main road. So: no radiators today. So near, and yet so far.
I love weather, me.
Latest in a long line of jazz greats recently rediscovered… I just listened to Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus playing “Hope A Hope A”, from the album Spirit of Nuff… Nuff. Wow. Another song I could stick in my internal jukebox on repeat for the rest of my life. To quote my own Amazon review:
This album has to have one of the weirdest instrumentations ever - the basslines are provided by two tubas, and they back up drums, a pair of electric guitars, a french horn and Threadgill’s saxophone.
It would be be foolish to listen to it for the instrumentation alone, but the resulting sound and timbre does create a unique and magical landscape. Couple that with the Threadgill’s soulful, flowing compositions and the slow, sonorous lament of all the brass instruments interrupted by the odd skronk on electric guitar, and this is a truly beautiful and moving album.
(actually, I think the album has a trombone, not the french horn which replaced it when I saw the Very Very circus live - what a gig that was, with 19-year-old Gene Lake driving the musicians along with some of the most spirited drumming ever heard).
(Also actually, it’s not the weirdest instrumentation ever. On a later album, Threadgill added an accordian, violin, African percussion, singers and something which sounds like a balalaika… and sounded damned good for it).
I just spotted a poster for some club night - featuring the DJs Acid Ted and Cyber Steve. It surely doesn’t get much better than this.
Also last night: Rowan, Beth and Lola were playing at angels.
Rowan started writing a poem last night:
Head to Head
When the sea is blue and nights are red together weel be head to head.
Unfortunately, she then realised she’d spelt “we’ll” wrong, twice (she originally spelt it “wel”), and threw a massive tantrum. She locked herself in the bathroom for half-an-hour, nothing we could do would coax her out. I told her that most of my friends can’t spell for toffee, in fact one of the worse spellers I know is Gordon, who is a journalist, edits a magazine, and has written three novels. It didn’t help.
I found the poem again this morning, hanging over a coathanger on my office door. Went for an early morning run, and the blue/red imagery dazzled me, as the sound of the sea sussurated. I extended the poem:
Head to Head
When the sea is blue and nights are red
Together we’ll be head to head.
When the sand soaks up things still unsaid
There’ll be you, there’ll be me and we’re head to head
When the red seeping out of the sun has bled
Fettered thoughts all fly free and still we’re head to head
When we both turn to comfort, to home and to bed
Sea and sand make us free, in our heart rolls the sea,
And together we’ll be
Head to
head to
head to
head to
head to
head to
head to head.
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