Hi all. My health is sadly deteriorating badly and my back is especially weak, so I am going to have to cease writing this for the time being.
Hopefully I can begin again at some point in the not too distant future.
Wishing you all well
Andy
Hiatus
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February 10 – the joy of small things
“Today I am a small blue thing
Like a marble or an eye.”
— Suzanne Vega, Smell Blue Thing (Suzanne Vega, 1988)
How many people here have read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl? I imagine most people have. My kids loved Roald Dahl and I had read this book myself in childhood (although for some reason I could never get my head around James and the Giant Peach. Huge pieces of fruit may be just a step too far. Oompa Loompas, yes. Gigantic nectarines, no thank you).
Anyway, the point about Charlie and the Chocolate factory is how it feels to be poor. Charlie, you may recall, shares his bed with his grandpa because of the lack of space in his house. Actually, it might be two grandpas. Or two grandpas and a mouse. I forget exactly. But Charlie’s one luxury in life is his birthday bar of Willy Wonka chocolate.
If Charlie had that chocolate every day it wouldn’t have meant so much to him. But, as a once a year treat it was treasured. It also meant he didn’t get fat and got gold stars from his dental hygienist.
February 7 – illness and narrative
“Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you”
– Stealers Wheel, Stuck in the Middle with You (Stealers Wheel, 1972)
…
The anthropologist Joseph Campbell observed a format that occurs in a great deal of world mythology, regardless of the region or culture that it belongs to. In these stories, the protagonist of the tale has to undergo a quest or ordeal, such as a visit to the underworld, in order to develop the skills and personality to become the person they need to be. Campbell uses the term The Hero’s Journey to collectively refer to these folk tales, which he describes at length in his best-selling book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This title is probably best known (together with Akira Kurosawa’s film The Hidden Fortress) for forming the basis of the first Star Wars film (which is less than helpfully entitled Episode IV, leaving the way clear for director George Lucas to create three terrible prequels and Jar Jar Binks) in 1977.
February 6 – little green men
— Roy Harper, The Green Man (The Green Man, 2000)
…
the stone carvings above the door (bottom left), a grotesque (bottom right)
February 5 – sounds and music
“what is music but organized noises?“
— Edgard Varèse
I think that the first piece of music I heard that could be described as ambient (although was probably actually ambient house) was The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds. This track received considerable radio play after its release in the 1990s and was much loved among university students.
After that, I was subsequently introduced by various people to Chill Out by The KLF, Tony Scott’s Music for Zen Meditation and numerous other pieces of ambient music.
February 4 – gates and other openings
“HO MON MURYO SEI GAN GAKU
Dharma gates are beyond measure, I vow to enter them all”
— the third of the Four Bodhisattva vows chanted daily in Zen monasteries
I love the idea of gateways, and openings, small passageways by which we can access new land and horizons. For me, gateways bring to mind literature such as Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in which passages to somewhere else are integral parts of the story.
February 3 – isolation
“There is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in”
— Leonard Cohen. Anthem (The Future, 1992)
One of the effects of chronic severe illness is that it cuts you off from the outside world. When I was first ill there was no real internet to speak of, and the only people with email addresses were those at university or in forward-thinking companies. Connection to other computers was carried out through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) requests and virtual logins.
At this time, people in the illness community connected with each other via lists of postal addresses and landline numbers. We sent postcards and conducted occasional and fairly brief phone calls. But these were welcome contact with something outside of bedroom walls. Continue reading
January 31 – who cares?
“Who cares when you’re on the floor
Just looking at the sky and praying for the light?”
— The Rose of Avalanche, Who Cares (Velveteen EP, 1986)
Chronic illness comes with different levels of severity. At the mildest level, it is something that requires medication or adjustments to be made in an otherwise seemingly normal life However, even this can be incredibly impactful in terms of having to plan around the needs of a medical condition.
At its most severe, long-term ill health deprives people of the ability to engage in some very basic activities, such as being able to look after themselves and do domestic chores.
January 30 – Scandiphilia
“I once had a girl
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn’t it good Norwegian wood?”
— The Beatles, Norwegian Wood (Rubber Soul, 1965)
I was going to start by saying that I have always loved the Nordic countries but that isn’t true. Really, my appreciation of all things Scandinavian began during my PhD studies from age 21 onwards.
January 29 – Pilgrim’s Choice*
“But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more“
— The Proclaimers, I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (Sunshine on Leith, 1988)
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400) is probably best known as the man who wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in Middle English told by a group of fictional pilgrims as part of a storytelling contest during their journey from London to Canterbury cathedral.
Living With Narwhals 