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Saturday, September 20, 2003
Rode out to Moretonhampstead this afternoon, rather hoping that some of the leaves on the trees that canopy the climb from Steps Bridge might finally be turning and falling. No such luck. It’s still like the middle of summer. And no, I am NOT complaining. Rode down to Bovey and finally found the road that link Bovey to Chudleigh Knighton so I didn’t have to run the gauntlet of the dual carriageway. Bovey looks rather pretty really; it was the first time I’ve actually been through it. Then I went down past the china clay quarries towards the coast, and finally back up and out from Teignmouth, climbing on the road that goes on forever. I got so lost in my rhythm I nearly missed the turn off for Dawlish. I have a feeling I did that earlier in the summer too… Anyway, that was my bike ride. It was really great and I don’t feel like quite so much of a loser anymore. I still think I wasted all my younger years, but what the hell. The past is passed. Made a new mix CD this morning; an accompaniment to one I made a few weeks ago, ostensibly for Izzy X, all filled full of female vocalists. Both collections sound great to my ears, but then I guess they would. I’m going to stick them on as the new Tangents radio show as soon as live365 lets me upload them. Here’s the track listings to whet your appetite: Today’s mix: bush tetras: things that go boom in the night lydia lunch: lady scarface lizzy mercier descloux: torso corso siouxsie and the banshees: metal postcard altered images: dead pop stars cocteau twins: blind dumb deaf pylon: crazy scrawl: reuters tsunami: genius of crack throwing muses: rabbits dying mecca normal: straying to summer wendy and bonnie: by the sea lois: danger uxb whistler: rare american shoes broadcast: come on let’s go the would be goods: emmanuelle beart the siddeleys: sunshine thuggery velocette: bitterscene shangri-las: train from kansas city wendy rene: what will tomorrow bring? ruby johnson: I’ll run your heart away doris allen: the shell of a woman denise james: no stars tonight aislers set: bang bang bang The other mix: juliana: so fuckin’ perfec the spinanes: spitfire tsunami: flameproof suit pylon: cool esg: moody stanton Miranda: wheels over indian trails cristina: blame it on disco the waitresses: wise up miaow: when it all comes down henry’s dress: target practice black tambourine: throw aggi off the bridge velocity girl: drug girls talulah gosh: i can’t get no satisfaction (thank god) tiger trap: for sure cub: cast a shadow comet gain: hideaway aislers set: long division the softies: selfish tracey thorn: small town girl the marine girls: lazy ways thalia zedek: candy says grenadine: this girl’s in love with you joni mitchell: the last time i saw Richard Uh, and incidentally, I mailed a copy of the second one to you Sethe, in a packet with a bunch of other CDRs like you asked for… Hope it gets to you at your new place okay. And turn the music down. Friday, September 19, 2003
I resubscribed to the Sinister list this week after several years away. It was a strange experience. As I said to Mark, who seems to the only old-boy still on there, it all feels rather like having walked out of a party for a quick snog, and then returning to find that all the party-goers have been bodysnatched. Which isn’t quite the right analogy, is it? So maybe more like they’ve been replaced by a whole new set of people, nearly all of whom you have no idea who the hell they are. The sense of community doesn’t seem to be there, although maybe I am being unjust judging it all on less than a week, but still and all… it got me thinking about whether the mailing list in general is just an outmoded form of e-communication, and whether it has been replaced by other forums, like chat rooms (do they still call them that?) or web-based forums like ‘I Love Everything’ and ‘I Love Music.’ I have looked in on those occasionally in the past few years but they confuse me too much, and really I just don’t have the time or the inclination for them I guess. I am old and set in my ways, perhaps. In other news I had a dream last night but I don’t remember anything about it except something happened in it that really pissed me off. I think it involved a coffee shop, but I couldn’t be sure. I woke up grumpier than normal as a result, and I didn’t sing to the cats. Actually I am trying not to sing songs to the cats in the morning anymore because I don’t think they really appreciate it and I sound like a sad case. So there you go. I’ve been supplementing my diet of the new B&S in the mornings with Nico’s ‘Chelsea Girl’ album once again. I wrote before about the connection between that record and B&S, and there’s a chocolate digestive biscuit to the person who can remind me what it was. Even though we have no chocolate digestive biscuits in the house. But hmmm, in many ways it’s become one of my very favourite records ever, mainly I think because Nico just sounds so amazingly otherworldly, and partly because the songs are just so wonderful. I mean, with Dylan, Cale, Reed and Jackson Browne (you can – and should - hate him for many things, but you can’t deny he gave us some exquisite songs) you can’t really go wrong, can you? Uh, well, obviously you could, but on this particular record you can’t. And of course Tim Hardin. ‘Eulogy To Lenny Bruce’ is just too sublime for words. So I wont use any. I’ll just go listen to it again. I am reading ‘The Flying Scotsman’ and feeling very old and sad and angry. Old and sad because I’m reading about the early-mid ‘80s, and reading names I recall from that era who used to cycle around the same parts I did, nostalgia for a culture that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Graeme says that the cycling clubs have dwindled to almost nothing, and that’s so sad, although having experienced the traffic there now I can see why. But then, it’s twenty years ago, and it is too easy to forget that. It’s like us looking back from 1983, and it would be 1963, and how had things changed since then? Things just change. And angry because I realise all over again what a horrible waste of a teenage / early 20s I had. I wrote a kind of jokey personal Biography for Nicola this week, and was very disparaging about most of my life, saying how I pissed away years drinking tequila and writing the odd fanzine. And really it was true, only it was even worse. I just pissed it all away doing fuck all. I’m ashamed of who I was at that time. I was a fucking joke. Maybe I still am, although I like to think I got a bit better, particularly in recent years. Reading Graeme talk about all the rides he used to go on, how many miles he did, I just realise all over again how pathetic I really was. I mean, I always knew I was never a great (or a good) cyclist, but really, it was just a joke. I realised that when I was back in Troon in the summer and I did a few short rides. Well, they were short to me now, but I was going out and doing routes that I used to think were a big deal. Going round the Coylton circuit, for example. It used to be a big deal, but really it’s just a couple of hours, and I even did an added detour this summer up to the Barnweil Monument, which again always used to seem like this big thing, and really it’s just a wee hill. So yeah, what a joke that teenage life was. I thought I was doing one thing, and really I was just being a nothing, putting in a mere fraction of the effort I could have been putting in. To everything. I just didn’t have a clue how much I was capable of… how much people are capable of generally. Maybe that’s partly why I am a teacher. Maybe I just want to help a couple of people not make the mistakes I made; help one or two see the possibilities that there are out there; what they can reach for and grasp hold of. Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Hey, how about that. No sooner than I moan about the fact that Apple are being so slow about announcing their PowerBook upgrades when POW! There they are. Now it’s just a question of how long they will take to ship. Hmmmm. Still, it’s very exciting. My other photography group went out with cameras today and snapped around the school. I haven’t looked at their shots yet. We’ll do it next lesson. I took some cool ones myself though, including a few of what appeared to be an unopened fruit juice carton sitting at the edge of a football pitch. It looked amazingly peculiar. I wonder if any of the kids took any shots of it… I also got a nice shot of Catherine’s shadow as she took a picture, partly falling across the reflected light from a classroom window. So I put those two on my daily photo thang for today. Speaking of which, yes Nicola, I will get that biography done for you soon. I promise! But I’m still pissed that I’ve lost a few months worth of high resolution copies of the photos. Grrrr. My backup scheduling seems to be working reliably though. Thank goodness for the delights of Carbon Copy Cloner. Still listening to the new Belle And Sebastian and liking it a great deal. I love that song about Thin Lizzy, and the one that sounds like ‘In The Country’ (as done by Cliff Richard and The Farmers Boys, although not together…). I also really like ‘Stay Loose’. It sounds just like Denim. Which is a good thing, of course. Oh, and I’ve been singing the chorus of ‘If She Wants Me’ all day. It’s great. Monday, September 15, 2003
The weather is odd at the moment. It still feels like the middle of the summer, instead of the middle of September, which means that when it does eventually turn for the worst it will be even more of a shock. You can tell I’m a glass half empty kind of guy, can’t you? Anyway, I’m listening to the new Belle And Sebastian album, and delighting in it inspite of myself. I really thought I wouldn’t like it, thought it would leave me cold like all their records have done since (bits of) The Boy With The Arab Strap. But ‘Dear catastrophe Waitress’ really is rather lovely. As is Isobel’s solo effort. No, really! It is! I couldn’t believe it… I had hated all that Gentle Waves crap and was poised to pour scorn on this new one. But it’s really rather gorgeous. I feel like I’m going through some kind of time warp. All it needs now is for Claire to come through my door and make my heart shake apart all over again. Maybe I should write a sequel to Belle Lettres. It could star Sethe (who I haven’t had chance / time / nerve to call despite feeling all the fingers pointing at me. I’m really bad at telephones you know). I am currently reading ‘Fierce People’ by Dirk Wittenborn (what a great name that is) and it is ACE. Just the thing for start of term my-brain-is-too-tired-to-think-too-much moods. It reminds me of the equally ace ‘Youth In Revolt’, and that’s no small recommendation. I also just finished Michael Chabon’s ‘kids’ book ‘Summerland’, which was really rather glorious. It made me want to watch baseball. For someone who generally hates sport, that’s some going. Uh, and school is school. Kids seem to be enjoying the photography course, or so I have heard through the grapevine, despite having no computers to use and most of them not having even taken any photos yet. One class took the cameras out in the lesson today, taking shots around the school. It seemed to go off well, and everyone conducted themselves with a maturity that surprised me a little (well, they’re all 14 year old boys, what can you expect?). There are even a few neat photos to show for it all. Maybe there is hope after all. Now I just wish Apple would get their fucking fingers out and announce the PowerBook upgrades that are holding up all delivery of machines at the moment… I keep looking at their website but it’s still that bloody new iPod announcement on there. Grrrr. |
