Once upon a time it was a running log. Then over a period of that same time it became a journal. And now it has gone online but only inasfar as it is then printed off. It remains a book. Solid, paper, tactile, humane. It contains quotations, postcards, ideas and random thoughts. It aims to be a resource and an ally, a confidante and a vent, a repository and a to-do list. The question is "How to index it ?"
At present I rely on my memory to avoid repeating myself. Words that I stumble across which make me stop and think are written down but how long is it before that same word again strikes me as fascinating (again) and I repeat the process ? In other words "What is the attention span of this journaller ?" Similarly in wanting to connect keywords and ideas together beyond the linearity of a narrative - of what comes next - I want to create a more flexible circling index. I want to show what references Joyce's Ulysses with Marilyn Monroe, to Norman Mailer, to Jerry Siegel ; and whether such a transition is found only in my own personal cerebellum and whether the journey is worth the price of a ticket. I want to find the entrance into my own head and navigate its tunnels, galleries and balconies. I want to examine it's architecture, it's archaeology and it's history and along the way to contemplate other writers, thinkers and artists who have made the same journey in their own fields and in their own idiosyncratic styles.
My journal aims to be a road map, and a commonplace book, an anthology and an art gallery, an abbreviated encyclopedia and a frustrated dictionary. It wants to be everything and nothing. It wants to answer questions and question answers. It wants more than an audience of one but it wants to to remain private. It wants to be famous and anonymous. I want it to say who I am and who I am not. I want it to say what I like and what I don't like. I want it to tell one truth but also to show the other millions of truths that exist out there. It aims to be "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" without being a diary, rural, female, or Edwardian. It is "The [ ][ ] of a(n) [ ][ ]". It aims to be open to the reader, provocative to the browser and to be everything for the writer. It aims to be the wor(l)d. Last. Mine.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Abstract Paintings Are Go
I am beginning to work on a new area for me. I have finished two abstract "paintings". I still haven't managed to use any colour but a style is appearing. It demonstrates perfectly the anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive side of my creative mind. Ideas are beginning to flicker through my mind constantly : being changed, adapted and mutating. However, alongside this, so are critical musings on the work. Why does this occur ? What makes me question why I do something instead of just doing it ? Is this my inner critic justifying the artwork ? Is it my psyche feeling threatened and therefore defensively pre-empting the world-wide discussions of the pieces ? When I collect enough work will I have to build the gallery, design the catalogue, pour the wine or will I settle for simply being a library assistant with a black pen.
At school in my art classes the focus was always on the figurative approach with the hyper-realism of an almost photographic perspective towards creativity. This was, I now recognise, because essentially we were aimed at passing particular examinations. It was not Art intended as a career and definitely not as a life-enhancing aspect of everyday existence. Even the careers which I was directed towards, and advice was sketchy to say the least, took more notice of salary than satisfaction and left the arts and humanities students to either teach or be taught forever.
I have repeatedly tried to do portraits and landscapes never finding the results to be either what I expected, or of sufficient quality to even merit keeping. There was always the nagging thought that a camera could do the job far better. So, at what point did my attitude to Art and Creativity begin to mellow ? From where did my symbolic muse suddenly appear ? That quiet little voice that persuades me I am on the right lines is also the voice that reassures me that even if nobody else ever views the art I know it is developing. I visualise a strange hybrid art form - part book part painting - born out of Blake and the illuminated manuscript and infected by Rothko and the Letraset catalogue. It will try to link the literature I love and admire with the art that inspires me - It will play games - sporting with the obscurity and the complexity of a Joycean narrative with the Northern philosophies of Roy Clarke and the late lamented Alan Plater. Like Joseph Cornell's boxes it will include the whole world of one man's interests and hopefully be of interest to more than that same one man.
At school in my art classes the focus was always on the figurative approach with the hyper-realism of an almost photographic perspective towards creativity. This was, I now recognise, because essentially we were aimed at passing particular examinations. It was not Art intended as a career and definitely not as a life-enhancing aspect of everyday existence. Even the careers which I was directed towards, and advice was sketchy to say the least, took more notice of salary than satisfaction and left the arts and humanities students to either teach or be taught forever.
I have repeatedly tried to do portraits and landscapes never finding the results to be either what I expected, or of sufficient quality to even merit keeping. There was always the nagging thought that a camera could do the job far better. So, at what point did my attitude to Art and Creativity begin to mellow ? From where did my symbolic muse suddenly appear ? That quiet little voice that persuades me I am on the right lines is also the voice that reassures me that even if nobody else ever views the art I know it is developing. I visualise a strange hybrid art form - part book part painting - born out of Blake and the illuminated manuscript and infected by Rothko and the Letraset catalogue. It will try to link the literature I love and admire with the art that inspires me - It will play games - sporting with the obscurity and the complexity of a Joycean narrative with the Northern philosophies of Roy Clarke and the late lamented Alan Plater. Like Joseph Cornell's boxes it will include the whole world of one man's interests and hopefully be of interest to more than that same one man.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
R. I. P. RBP
Robert B. Parker.
Born September 17th 1932 Springfield, Massachusetts
Died January 18th 2010
I have grown up with Spenser. I remember the power of the early works. I delight in the wit and humour and intellectual rigour of the later books. I relished everything about the books. Even as the critics levelled their charges I bought and read and kept the books. To me Parker's creation of Spenser and the characters around him carried an intense meaning that sums up how I interact with literature and life on all levels. I would sit with Spenser at his desk, with a glass of Irish whiskey looking out of the window. I remember Paul Giacomin, the boy who shrugged. I remember the shock as Susan left him. I appreciated the total self-awareness and intensity of emotion reflected in the words and the meanings behind the words.
When John D. MacDonald died and Travis McGee departed to that great Marina in the sky I felt cheated that there would be no more in the series. With Robert Parker I feel grief of the same ilk but also a sense that the characters cannot die. I don't mean for a resurrection of RBP the franchise or an attempt to turn a doodle on a deskpad into the unfinished work that is reminiscent of, but not quite, the genuine article. I mean that in Spenser, Hawk, Vinnie, Jesse, Sunny the images survive in the mind. They live on, and of course so too, does Robert Parker in that sense. I always wanted to read his PhD thesis and perhaps his publishers might consider that but above all I will miss the chance for Spenser and the rest to live their lives on. I would have liked to carry on living with them all instead of having their existences paused with that sense of anti-climax. I could use any number of quotations from the books that might seem apt for this sad occasion but I remember with particular fondness "Early Autumn" where Spenser is teaching Paul how to live, indeed how to survive by himself, in himself, yet at the same time demonstrating the type of relationship that underpins all meaningful human interaction. Parker helped me to understand these type of ideas within the same framework as other great writers from the very highest canons of world literature. For this, Robert, I am grateful. When you're milling around up there explaining to your friends (who made the journey sooner like Robert Urich) what you had envisaged for Spenser and Susan and Pearl (the Wonder Dog) I hope you will feel the love and affection in which you were (and still are) held. I pass on my commiserations to Joan and say thank you for her husband and his work. I raise my glass in salute.
Born September 17th 1932 Springfield, Massachusetts
Died January 18th 2010
I have grown up with Spenser. I remember the power of the early works. I delight in the wit and humour and intellectual rigour of the later books. I relished everything about the books. Even as the critics levelled their charges I bought and read and kept the books. To me Parker's creation of Spenser and the characters around him carried an intense meaning that sums up how I interact with literature and life on all levels. I would sit with Spenser at his desk, with a glass of Irish whiskey looking out of the window. I remember Paul Giacomin, the boy who shrugged. I remember the shock as Susan left him. I appreciated the total self-awareness and intensity of emotion reflected in the words and the meanings behind the words.
When John D. MacDonald died and Travis McGee departed to that great Marina in the sky I felt cheated that there would be no more in the series. With Robert Parker I feel grief of the same ilk but also a sense that the characters cannot die. I don't mean for a resurrection of RBP the franchise or an attempt to turn a doodle on a deskpad into the unfinished work that is reminiscent of, but not quite, the genuine article. I mean that in Spenser, Hawk, Vinnie, Jesse, Sunny the images survive in the mind. They live on, and of course so too, does Robert Parker in that sense. I always wanted to read his PhD thesis and perhaps his publishers might consider that but above all I will miss the chance for Spenser and the rest to live their lives on. I would have liked to carry on living with them all instead of having their existences paused with that sense of anti-climax. I could use any number of quotations from the books that might seem apt for this sad occasion but I remember with particular fondness "Early Autumn" where Spenser is teaching Paul how to live, indeed how to survive by himself, in himself, yet at the same time demonstrating the type of relationship that underpins all meaningful human interaction. Parker helped me to understand these type of ideas within the same framework as other great writers from the very highest canons of world literature. For this, Robert, I am grateful. When you're milling around up there explaining to your friends (who made the journey sooner like Robert Urich) what you had envisaged for Spenser and Susan and Pearl (the Wonder Dog) I hope you will feel the love and affection in which you were (and still are) held. I pass on my commiserations to Joan and say thank you for her husband and his work. I raise my glass in salute.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Resigned to my fate...
No rethinking then. A new organisational structure. No mention of terms such as regrading or promotion. No evidence of thoughts ever having touched on them. I notice both my old departments Serials and Document Supply have been renamed or submerged under different titles. My always-lurking paranoia questions whether perhaps my deafness has been factored into the move. That perhaps I have been found wanting in my customer care skills.
I move to St Georges Library in January (unless those lottery numbers come up first) and expect that life will go on. I will miss the team I have now - they have easily been the best team I have ever worked with. I came to Document Supply trying to find a way to deal with a fractured trust and a feeling that management had used me and exploited me. Being continually asked to do small extra tasks that might eventually give me a job description that would merit upgrading. The promise was dangled above me various times in Serials - new job title - extra responsibilities - but Pay and Reward rather failed to reward me.
Document Supply made me glad to go back to work, not because I believed the future was any brighter but because I loved the people I work with. Thank you for helping me. I wish we could continue.
I move to St Georges Library in January (unless those lottery numbers come up first) and expect that life will go on. I will miss the team I have now - they have easily been the best team I have ever worked with. I came to Document Supply trying to find a way to deal with a fractured trust and a feeling that management had used me and exploited me. Being continually asked to do small extra tasks that might eventually give me a job description that would merit upgrading. The promise was dangled above me various times in Serials - new job title - extra responsibilities - but Pay and Reward rather failed to reward me.
Document Supply made me glad to go back to work, not because I believed the future was any brighter but because I loved the people I work with. Thank you for helping me. I wish we could continue.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Restructuring.... Feudalism
At this moment in time I am hoping for a re-think. For a miracle - for the forces of management to stop their meddling in people's lives and start considering their people. You know, those people, us, that they supposedly invest in, in order to get that plaque. The shield that has been carefully removed from the mezzanine level for safekeeping whilst our workplace becomes a building site.
Of course according to the latest rather vague plan under orders I might be deported off to another workplace come January. In management's version of consultation I have been offered either the job I do now in a different place or a job where I stay with my friends, my team, doing a job I have no desire for - and a hearing problem that makes it almost impossible to really do it well. I consider this offer further evidence that when it comes to consultation some levels of our organisation possess the man-management skills of Vlad the Cataloguer.
The culture of academia has long been considered more humanitarian than,for instance, industry and commerce but within its management framework there are still elements that view those ununionised days of toil and strife as the ideal world. Whilst the world of Trade downsizes, the planet Academia considers the merits of "cheaper, faster, better" and voluntary severance schemes. It pays lip-service to its slave labour, says thank you for building those pyramids with the payoff of Danish pastries and collages of melons but pay and reward is remarkably patchy. The workplace is placed under intolerable conditions. Floundering in a miasma of mahogany dust and accompanied by the rythym of decibel-rich diamond drilling we whinge and we work. Then the library staff cope. Its employees are willing to struggle but we would like to be able to use the experience we have accumulated. If I am separated from my team the University Library will still survive but the world will be less enjoyable particularly for me (and my friends I think). I don't suppose it really matters it just means that caring will become a little bit more difficult.
Of course according to the latest rather vague plan under orders I might be deported off to another workplace come January. In management's version of consultation I have been offered either the job I do now in a different place or a job where I stay with my friends, my team, doing a job I have no desire for - and a hearing problem that makes it almost impossible to really do it well. I consider this offer further evidence that when it comes to consultation some levels of our organisation possess the man-management skills of Vlad the Cataloguer.
The culture of academia has long been considered more humanitarian than,for instance, industry and commerce but within its management framework there are still elements that view those ununionised days of toil and strife as the ideal world. Whilst the world of Trade downsizes, the planet Academia considers the merits of "cheaper, faster, better" and voluntary severance schemes. It pays lip-service to its slave labour, says thank you for building those pyramids with the payoff of Danish pastries and collages of melons but pay and reward is remarkably patchy. The workplace is placed under intolerable conditions. Floundering in a miasma of mahogany dust and accompanied by the rythym of decibel-rich diamond drilling we whinge and we work. Then the library staff cope. Its employees are willing to struggle but we would like to be able to use the experience we have accumulated. If I am separated from my team the University Library will still survive but the world will be less enjoyable particularly for me (and my friends I think). I don't suppose it really matters it just means that caring will become a little bit more difficult.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
BBC Poetry
Although I dislike the way television governs people's actions (especially mine) I must admit to entering into a very difficult stage of the year. These next two months will find me stretched between the Ashes cricket and the Tour de France, but on top of these is a more peculiar return to an old love. It keeps me awake at night and it makes my eyes go glassy and write interesting phrases into a notebook. It isn't healthy like my love of running, or jogging, or sitting in an armchair eating doughnuts whilst watching cricket. Poetry. Perhaps it was just a combination of factors. Television programme about Eliot and Prufrock, tidying my attic and finding Stephen Fry's "Ode less travelled", and remembering an old friend Christina whose views on poetry depended on the use of rhyme. No rhyme equalled No Poem.
Stephen Fry was alternatively scathing about the belief that Poetry was easy to write because it didn't need to rhyme. He stresses the discipline of the different forms and the difficulty of finding the "write" word. I am intrigued by the fact that as a writer (of whatever quality) I can feel if a word is correct. I can feel that also there is a better word but, at this moment in time I can't remember it. Where does that word live ? Where does it come from ? How does it return ?
This "vocation" also fits in with that strange need to comment on whatever surrounds me. Whether in emails to friends and strangers alike. Whether in comments directed to my colleagues passing by an enquiry point in a deserted catalogue hall. Whether in those occasional times when I exchange diction for drawing and design. I am unsure as to whether I am some sort of detached observer whose failing ears have kickstarted some long-submerged literary and emotional turbine or whether the creativity virus has always infected me and gradually metamorphosed out of dormancy.
Whatever - I thank all those people who made it possible - BBC included (although I still begrudge them the licence fee) and will finish with a poem (as they say, defensively, a work in progress...)
On/Off : the rails
Background noise, loud-mouthed boys
Humming conversations.
Power games, shrill-voiced girls
Expressing complications.
Landscape moving, no-one watching
Visions craving patience.
Tram rails down, approaching town
Arriving platformed stations.
Mobiles waiting, appointments, dating.
Embarrassing situations.
Thinking, writing, avoiding fighting
All possible variations.
Riders dispersing, rarely conversing,
Alighting then into the silence.
Remarking in murmurs, remembering journeys
The walking, the driving, the distance.
Passengers roam, but the writer’s returning
Determined, believing in learning.
Inspired to try, not frightened to pry
In the sound of a voice gently yearning.
Stephen Fry was alternatively scathing about the belief that Poetry was easy to write because it didn't need to rhyme. He stresses the discipline of the different forms and the difficulty of finding the "write" word. I am intrigued by the fact that as a writer (of whatever quality) I can feel if a word is correct. I can feel that also there is a better word but, at this moment in time I can't remember it. Where does that word live ? Where does it come from ? How does it return ?
This "vocation" also fits in with that strange need to comment on whatever surrounds me. Whether in emails to friends and strangers alike. Whether in comments directed to my colleagues passing by an enquiry point in a deserted catalogue hall. Whether in those occasional times when I exchange diction for drawing and design. I am unsure as to whether I am some sort of detached observer whose failing ears have kickstarted some long-submerged literary and emotional turbine or whether the creativity virus has always infected me and gradually metamorphosed out of dormancy.
Whatever - I thank all those people who made it possible - BBC included (although I still begrudge them the licence fee) and will finish with a poem (as they say, defensively, a work in progress...)
On/Off : the rails
Background noise, loud-mouthed boys
Humming conversations.
Power games, shrill-voiced girls
Expressing complications.
Landscape moving, no-one watching
Visions craving patience.
Tram rails down, approaching town
Arriving platformed stations.
Mobiles waiting, appointments, dating.
Embarrassing situations.
Thinking, writing, avoiding fighting
All possible variations.
Riders dispersing, rarely conversing,
Alighting then into the silence.
Remarking in murmurs, remembering journeys
The walking, the driving, the distance.
Passengers roam, but the writer’s returning
Determined, believing in learning.
Inspired to try, not frightened to pry
In the sound of a voice gently yearning.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Twitterdom
All things considered.
Well, no. Not really. I never consider anything. I just do it (to quote an old advertising slogan). I don't understand it really but this glamorous woman said Do this - so I did. It is like all the other next big things ; Web 2, Wii fit, and other monstrosities moving rapidly from wow to old hat. All it served to do was to remind me that I ought to update some of the other last big things.
My blog, unnoticed by the entirety of humankind serves as a sort of diary to myself in which I hardly ever participate. Perhaps in that parallel universe where I run the world as a wise, benevolent and magnanimous dictator I actually do what I say I will.
Or maybe I won't.
The idea is that we are basically interested in what OTHER people are doing. Now. It's an "In the present tense" idea. How to track people. We used to call it stalking. Now it's described as social interaction. Following a succession of Status messages. Like the dylanologists used to study Bob's leftover Curry cartons to discover the meaning of life. Are we defined by what we say we do and what we say we are ? My dad, Christian to the last second believed that we are defined by what we do; by action. By deeds. I think he assumed Good deeds. If this is true and my current career and lifestyle in the library-world serves to define me then I am going to face a pretty boring recitation of my achievements at the Pearly Gates. Pete, er, well, I'd like to confess three major sins but want 8,000 renewals to be taken into account and I once offered additional support to a totally innocent bystander.
God (or the other one) will certainly have an archive. A dark shadowy place where shelvers fear to tread. I can see the management-speak as the red fiery horned one suggests doing a spot of shelf-tidying and we, taking it all on board, respond in the affirmative and trudge off into the corners of life's mysterious and modular shelving.
Anyway Status. Not waving but drowning.
...and you're not vile.
Well, no. Not really. I never consider anything. I just do it (to quote an old advertising slogan). I don't understand it really but this glamorous woman said Do this - so I did. It is like all the other next big things ; Web 2, Wii fit, and other monstrosities moving rapidly from wow to old hat. All it served to do was to remind me that I ought to update some of the other last big things.
My blog, unnoticed by the entirety of humankind serves as a sort of diary to myself in which I hardly ever participate. Perhaps in that parallel universe where I run the world as a wise, benevolent and magnanimous dictator I actually do what I say I will.
Or maybe I won't.
The idea is that we are basically interested in what OTHER people are doing. Now. It's an "In the present tense" idea. How to track people. We used to call it stalking. Now it's described as social interaction. Following a succession of Status messages. Like the dylanologists used to study Bob's leftover Curry cartons to discover the meaning of life. Are we defined by what we say we do and what we say we are ? My dad, Christian to the last second believed that we are defined by what we do; by action. By deeds. I think he assumed Good deeds. If this is true and my current career and lifestyle in the library-world serves to define me then I am going to face a pretty boring recitation of my achievements at the Pearly Gates. Pete, er, well, I'd like to confess three major sins but want 8,000 renewals to be taken into account and I once offered additional support to a totally innocent bystander.
God (or the other one) will certainly have an archive. A dark shadowy place where shelvers fear to tread. I can see the management-speak as the red fiery horned one suggests doing a spot of shelf-tidying and we, taking it all on board, respond in the affirmative and trudge off into the corners of life's mysterious and modular shelving.
Anyway Status. Not waving but drowning.
...and you're not vile.
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