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I love the splashdown video from NASA though it seems to speak to me about the current state of the world and the enduring cruelty of human”kind.”
Lo
Unsure I fully comprehend The Loneliness Epidemic though in part I love being alone. I go new places and do new things nearly always on my own – but it is never so because I talk to or meet new people. I have visited historic buildings where, for example, caretakers have shown me around, invited me back, introduced themselves, and have shook (shaken?) my hand. I know these are not friends but acquaintances. Then again, neither is it about being nor operating fully alone. It is initiating sparks of connection. It requires effort.
If I chose, I could again join any number of social groups or community organisations or volunteering roles. The latter, I previously created for myself. These other options are on my doorstep – and, again, I suppose that makes the difference. Is there some aspect of choice? Unless one is incapacitated or severely unwell (this has happened to me also). During a hospital stay last year, it was the volunteers who made that difference. The work they do is incredible, garnering nothing but admiration and respect.
In later years, Post-Covid, with Long Covid symptoms abating, I have, in addition, come to benefit from correspondence with friends. It makes a significant personal impact. I consider myself blessed to have those with whom I can share life’s woes and joys at an often intimate level. Contemporary ‘friendship’ does reconfigure virtually – I recognise that as an issue – though I personally re-accept it for its worth. However, it will never diminish a truth: To allow real people in, in real-world situations.
I am currently reading ‘The Lonely City’ by Olivia Laing.
Titanic
Some have nothing, no one, not a bean to their name, no home, partner, family. You can be homeless never having owned a home and without that measure of security. Such things are also, as Clive James referred to, a matter of fortune, of luck, which others refute or take for granted. This makes it easier for them to advise or to judge without a truer thought. And, yes, life is not easy for anyone. However, it is without universal entitlement, fallback, ease, opportunity, or support. We are not all in the same storm. We are in different boats. We are in different cabins.
“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.” – Lorca
Faith Full
I was working in a record store in Chelsea 100 years ago. In my glass box that was the Classical And Jazz Section I manned alone… Why did I leave those days.
She came in with an entourage of youngsters she had clearly picked-up at some watering hole. Wanting to buy them each a copy of one of her CDs. She initially asked if I had broken biscuits when I looked at her perplexedly. She explained, “That’s what we call ‘Broken English’ in our house.” I suspect that she knew that I knew all along but enjoyed the game. When I returned with a single obscure title from her back catalogue, she appeared furious.
Someone named Beck was big at the time. I remember her mouthing-off “They’ve been going on about fucking Beck. I suppose you’ve got fucking Beck CDs, in stock, haven’t you. Get me copies of the fucking Beck CD instead.” Once they had their gifts, they all pissed-off, abandoning moi with a half-cut Marianne Faithfull on my arm.
The Diva insisted on walking me up and down the aisles of Jazz CDs and LPs, asking my opinion of each. It was difficult to believe she had never heard of half of these, as she claimed. At till-point, she joked, “Bloody next time I’m here, just make sure you have my fucking CDs in, OK?!” But, somewhat uncertainly, added, “I’m Marianne Faithfull.” Why the reiteration. To secure a sense of reality.
I replied, “I know. And it’s really nice to meet you.” At which she met my eye directly and thrust out her hand, her arm solid and motionless. I took her palm for one of the warmest handshakes ever, met with one of the warmest smiles, with which she left. I was walking on air for at least an hour afterwards.
Something New From Me
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Thinking lately how genius is more than its form. And how that is unquantifiable. Therefore, a Hitchcock film is more than a film – much more than “just a film” – he worked beyond form and formula, if anything attempting to ignore or defy it. To produce something unique and almost entirely due the demands of its own expression.
Picasso is more than a Picasso, it has more to say, beyond the frame of a fixed visual artwork, there is language, communication… inherent within in and beyond. Art was simply his media, but what he was expressing moved farther. Bolero is way more than “just” a musical composition…
Plus the crossovers evident in these practitioners. The influence of Eastern idioms upon Western Composers. The African folk arts upon Picasso’s representations of visage. The Surrealist painters and photographers referenced by Hitch. Genius is to be all things to all people and also, like Graham Greene, to see all things from all angles.
Extra Care
If not the means, there are ways around or through. It takes time. Dis-perpetuate the status quo. Seek anew. Explore alternate paths and ennoble these. Create options. Keep going. Sometimes standing still is moving forward only unrealised at the time.
Take extra care over what becomes normalised in your world. Normalise what you know and desire to be real. The sense of self, sanity, identity, trust, and reason, must never be dispensed with. Nurture these things.
You cannot complete the cycle because you are part of it. You can only step away once the cycle completes – once you have completed it or it you. Change is the recognition of change and of enabling it (recognition and process).
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Story
Time to regurgitate my favourite seasonal anecdote. When the vicar visits the Year 1 class to relay The Easter Story. “And so, children,” he enquires at closing, “What do you think Jesus said to His disciples when He came back to life?”
Silence.
Until, nervously, at the back of the class, one little girl stands, stretches out her arms, and exclaims, “TA DA!”
What Is
Ordered a music manuscript book off Temu of all places. Haven’t owned one since my teens. Can sketch ideas when out and about. Will help me feel better – that I am doing something – and to get started again.
Thinking a lot about the music… The idiocy of conforming to canonistic norms… Perspective on all things. I see now that My Thing is simply to engender life to unique pieces of their own characteristics. That is what is important.
Photos by Martin
The Château
Impossible, to ‘find’ any novel that truly holds my attention. Especially “contemporary fiction.” Language and style, dull and formulaic, every narrative predictable, I never make it past a couple of chapters. A joy, a true find, is William Maxwell’s ‘The Château’. Beautifully composed, artfully threading as it does between character and setting, it is the mythical page-turner I always seek. Again, a joy, for a new favourite to make its appearance.
It also presents a clever paradox in brutalising the sentiment of “average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people…” The book is entirely about people – seemingly small events, trivia, foibles – according to the tension and drama these build. And gently so, again played-out via the setting. My feeling is that Maxwell is translating the human world as action and inaction. This defines us as social beings, and is inescapable. The question, of how our identities form or are formed or are forming.
Spirit
Flawed beauty. The most beautiful people contain the flaw – the inclusion – that renders them beautiful. What is it that surpasses that? A perfection of spirit? The ugliest people I’ve ever known were all, always, the most physically attractive.
“The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.” – Sigmund Freud
“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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Inter
Decreasing circles only slightly altered. An expression of being lost. Only now, the terrain of ‘being lost’ becomes recognisable. Disaster or success, I am no longer sure. Have now attained such heightened sense of calm, I could easily nod off the next ten days. How rare and how rarely attainable are these times. By mid-afternoon, had plummeted into an overwhelmingly deep sleep. Dead to the world, two hours. Woke to endless decaf. A huge bowl of porridge with bananas and berries. Lost myself in my book and Radio 3. It is raining once more.
Mistakes
How strange it is getting older when you grieve the energy of youth whilst knowing it created and sustained mistakes you are less willing to encourage – that again alongside the knowledge that mistakes are simply unavoidable in life. And when stasis becomes just another outcome.
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Invisuality
Following a scan at UCLH, all staff refused to contact the nurse who had requested them to phone her to escort me back to the ward. They did nothing other than complain about it to my face. This followed me standing and waiting (in hospital gown and slippers) in front of the Reception counter with not one but two outpatients content to push ahead of me. I was invisible.
Both outpatients, I may add, were older not younger and prove my adage that the supposed “arrogance of the young” is easily replaced…
Lost
Something is forever lost in the digital age. Spatial and emotional awareness most noticeable, in comparison with my formative years. To the extent of being wheeled on a bed through hospital corridors with more than one person seeming not to notice or unwilling to step aside. “Excuse me!” I heard the medics repeat. Why this needs to be said is bizarre. What seems normal to this generation seems extraordinary to me. Considered innate – a true sense of social priority – I also recall as cited indoctrination by teachers and elders. It now feels like a blessing and a privilege.
No idea that Grant passed away a couple of years ago. Sometimes news is slow to reach. I experienced this before – the double sadness. Grant was a wonderful man, a very talented and prolific writer. A fighter. And incredibly supportive. I can’t express how much it meant that he enjoyed my work to the extent that his small press project published it.
Thank you, Grant. Rest In Power.
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Circular
On a walk yesterday, I encountered (at a charity shop) a small and simple white bowl with a black glaze interior. Common or garden Shabby-tat thing but very nice and only £1. It replaces a plain ramekin for coins. I have barely any material items but this is a minimal update and interests me in that way. It looks cleaner and more stylish, and appears to present an air of calm. I think somehow due its semicircular form.
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Mixedupweirdstuff
Found myself on a garage forecourt pre-interview gluing the sole of my shoe. This time around things flipped: The interview solid, the teaching session not quite. Was going OK but two-thirds in had an energy crash. A sign of judgement on the Head Of Department’s face caught the corner of my eye. I tanked. And now tanking-up with caffeine. It proved another non-secure post, though, not paying beyond end-of-term… Not what I need. Unsure this was overt when I applied. Whereafter? A wander around Clapham, an old stomping ground. Mixedupweirdstuff prevails.
Carousel
The Mary Poppins books are favourites worth re-reading every few years. Poetic, Surreal, yet incredibly socially contemplative (almost politically so) and far darker than is commonly perceived. No trace of ‘correctness’ to belie the veneer of English unflappability. And no wonder Walt Disney drove Pamela Travers (who nears genius) nuts. The carousel is one of her many and varied metaphors on life. Hitchcock used the same. It reflects and refracts a deeper introspection.
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Martin Slidel 