May 27, 2002
Cathedral skies
The view from Milo's bedroom window.
I've been busy as you can no doubt tell from the lack of entries. I've also been fairly drained as well - I'm working on our wireless stuff at work (which means I get an ever so cool bluetooth iPaq to play with) and there has been a bit of a learning curve. I am fairly on top of it now - its had the sad side effect that I'm learning html. The code and links for the image above where typed in raw and worked first time. Eeek!
I've been writing a lot - I am putting together a collection of poems - all new. Rather than publishing them one at a time I am going to collect them up - not sure how I am going to release them yet - a pdf is the obvious choice but part of me is wondering if its worth touting them round a few publishers first. I'll see how I feel when the collection is a lot more substantial. Not much music - I've a couple of things that need mixing down but they are more sketches than finished pieces - I need to sit down and do some work on them.
Haven't really had much time to read - I've just started on "The Science of the Diskworld" which is excellent - rather than being a crap science book that tries to explain the stuff that happens in the diskworld instead it uses the diskworld as a venue for thought experiments and alternate view points to our own science - so far its most excellent.
Cd's of the moment are Alice by Tom Waits - truly excellent piece of work and a very late new entry (I got it today): Camphor by David Sylvian which despite being a compilation is full of new mixes and material (which is great for someone like me who has most everything Sylvian has released over the years).
May 01, 2002
After the rain
I've been ill for the last few days but I'm feeling much better now - I've just fed Milo a bottle and put him to bed - cleaned up the kitchen and laundry room - put the rubbish out and sat in the back garden looking at the stars. And now I'm sitting here writing this with a large glass of Laphroaig at hand. Without comming over like a complete hippy it doesn't get much better than that. I have a suspicion that after all my years of running around and doing this that and the other this family life suits me. Of course I needed to do all the running about first but now I've done it it makes this all the better. Mmmm.
Talking of the stars and the universe check out the latest pictures from Hubble make sure you look at the enlargments too - not just the thumbnails. Its worth the time to download. It makes you realise that the earth is just an insignificant dot in the scheme of things - those galaxies coliding are unbelivably big made of billions and billions of stars - possibly with planets and other lifeforms...
Mmm - sounding more like a hippy all the time :-)
Oh well - onto something slightly less cool - it seems like politics is the news story of the moment - I really don't get our political system. I mean they claim its a democracy all the time and because we've had it for hundreds of years then it must be cool (tell that to the jar of mayonaise at the back of the fridge). But in reality what we have is a bunch of people who are too scared of making real decisions (and hence making themselves unpopular) to actually achieve anything. Any decision that does get made has to be stuck to as well because changing your mind even after every one and their dog has pointed out how stupid the idea is is seen as weak (that one in particular is one I don't get - the press and opposition jump on "U-turns" as if they are bad instead of praising the government for comming to its senses!). So we all stop voting and the extremists take advantage of the small number of votes and then we have to go our and vote in the dull middle of the road people again to stop everything falling to pieces.
OK - well its not quite as bad as that - but not far off. The only reason we put with Tony patronising us in his smug way and making laws about the way we tie our shoelaces because he looks good after Maggie....
Still - I don't know what the answer is. It got us away from the hippy mood though :-)
Media wise there is some great stuff around at the moment - The Edwardian Country House is compelling viewing - what a different world and it was less than 100 years ago (ie. around the time the Queen Mum (who's just died if you are not a uk viewer) was born). Book wise I'm reading Grey area by Will Self, The voyage of the Narwhal and Microsound by Curtis Roads - all excellent. On the music front too there is a lot to choose from - top picks are the new Tom Waits albums of which the internet was kind enough to provide a sneak preview (they are pre-ordered from amazon too - just impatient). Also well worth checking out is Solaris by Jah Wobble and co. Mental tripped out space rock/dub which harks back to Can at their very finest (and features their drummer who must be about 60 and still drumming like a demon). And in case all that makes me sound like an old fart I've been listening to quite a lot of Kid606 too - hence the Taikonauts track in the last update.
On the front of my own music I am hard at work on an album for web (and possiby CD-R) release. I've got a couple of tracks done and a lot of programing (talking of which there are new releases of my PD stuff available on the pd page) set up there is still plenty to do - more sampling and more writing mainly. This is an amalgamation of a lot of the projects I've been intending to do over the years - except of course this one is actually happening :-).