Created Metaphors

No More Metaphors

I am shutting down this weblog. 

In a sense I am consolidating myself, as I will post everything from now on at eventyr.

My Future

In a fickle moment
I was stolen by my future
that casual, random structure.
I shall build it up more beautiful,
as I had thought it at first.
I shall build it on the firm ground
    that is my will.
I shall raise it on the tall pillars
    that are my ideals.
I shall give it a secret passage
    that is my soul.
I shall build it with a high tower
    that is my solitude.

-- Edith Södergran - 'My Future'

Street Greeting

"You look tired" he said as I reached my car that morning.

"Do I?"

Shaking his head he rephrased himself, "Do you think you look tired?"

I shrugged at the stranger, and looked up at the grey morning sky.  Winter was creeping in and everywhere was damp from the recent rain.  "Everyone is tired at this time of year."

"Is this your car? I cleaned it for you."

I looked at him, this stranger who had halted me.

"The birds, you know.  I have a woollen sock.  It works well, wool.  It just wipes off, like this.  See?"

I looked at him as he wiped at my car with a white woollen sock.

"I'm going to clean my steps using it next."

I muttered my thanks and excused myself.  Interesting kindness and odd words.

New Models

Impressively still going since the early 1980's, what really astounded me seeing New Model Army play again recently was that they remain one of the best live bands I know.    Made my heart oddly happy.

---

I'll watch the sun set over every sea
From every city wall, every mountain peak
Before I get old
The Northern Lights and the Southern Cross
The harvests and the miles of dust
And the blowing wind across the world
So wrap this coat around yourself
And leave what's done behind
There's so much left for us to do
And yet there's so little time
I'm going to pull the fences to the ground
Watch the twisted towers come crumbling down
And start again
Before I get old - New Model Army

Running Wild

There was an odd feeling deep in my bones tonight.  Like spring in autumn, a bounce in my step, a desire to run wild. 

I was on the bus home, cider in my veins, on my way to my family home, my childhood bedroom, my work.  To do work.

I almost rebelled.  This feeling pushed. 

In a moment, in a flash, I would have been off the bus, out to go dancing and socialising, rebelling as if I were still young.  I am still young (I am!) but, as the crowd reminded me as the bus pulled past, not that young.  It has been more than twelve years since I first went to that nightclub.  So long ago.

And yet this need still pulsed through me.  Why do I need to work?  Why can't I still run wild?  After all I do still live at home.  I am still a student.

Instead the bus drew me on, drew me home, to the life that is still in flux as I fail to grow up or live young.  The life in which I failed to decide who I want to be.

I run late, searching for things that cannot be found.  Like a white rabbit joining the hunt for snarks.

Feeling the Walls

I don't know whether it is poor spatial awareness, poor balance, or just a love of tactile sensation, but I feel the walls when I walk. 

As a child I would run my hand along the fence, rat-a-tat-tat, on my way home.  I did the same with the walls, but they made a less interesting sound.  I did the same with a Yucca, and cut my hands.

My trailing hand feels the path.

I didn't learn a lesson from that yucca experience and today my hands still follow walls, radiators, window panes, wood.  I know where I have been from the textures on the walls I pass.

Texture, balance, whatever.  I feel my way wherever I go.

(Not sure if that's just me, and an odd compulsion that is all my own, or a perfectly normal behaviour that I have just chosen to vocalise.)

Singing Chef

"Are you to busy to organize your own dinner party?  or simply just want to relax with your friends,  while top quality internationally flavoured cuisine is prepared and served from your very own kitchen.  Imagine as those sumptuous desserts are being digested,  after dinner entertainment from a musician and performer whose songs will leave your guests spellbound."

The lovely and brilliant Matt Kemp has set up business in Brighton as The Singing Chef.

It is a phenomenal idea, and one I intend to make use of, especially as his prices are so cheap:  Only £125 for a five person dinner party with consultation, purchase of ingredients, the three course meal, complementary glass of wine, music and kitchen clean. He can cook* and he's a darned good musician. Phenomenal bargain to my mind (and I'm a student!).

Now I just need to find someone willing to let me host a dinner party at their house.

------

I can personally attest to this as he was our BPEC chef at Glastonbury this year, managing to keep 30+ bellies happy all through the festival.

Bounding Feet

Today I realised I had lost my walk. 

I was walking at the time.  Baffled, I almost stopped.

When I was younger a friend used to joke I had the Newman walk.  To his mind all those who went to Cardinal Newman School came out with a distinctive walk.  I had it, my brother had it, my friend's ex-girlfriend and another friend's niece and nephew all had it.  A fast-stride high bounce walk.  Bobbing while striding.  Purposeful. 

These days I amble; slow, flat, no pace or drive.  Comfortable but not powerful.

'I've lost my walk' I was thinking as I walked along by the level just now, 'Should I try and find it?'  And as I was thinking these thoughts on came a song on the radio: Here Comes the Hotstepper.

I enjoyed that walk, but I shall wait and see what the future holds for me walk-wise.

White Mask at the Red

This week, dressed once again in my assigned white mask, having paid for my cloak, I explored The Masque of The Red Death by Punchdrunk.  While more claustrophobic in atmosphere than the expansive Faust, they certainly pulled it off again. 

The excited reviews are true - I'd make sure to return if there were only any tickets left.

I treasure the moments clinging to the walls in the dark as performers climb, run dance past.  I treasure getting directly struck by one of the flung books.  I'm proud of quickly obtaining my cloak and for finding the secret way.  And (if I recall correctly) the whispered words "Do you ever wonder why nothing happens when you die?"

I am waiting to see what happens from here.

---

Update: Just seen the interesting and useful review from the Guardian.

Finding Order

Yesterday I cleared.  Shuffling things in my small living space.

The strange thing I realised is that being back in your childhood bedroom causes interesting filing issues.  Fitting a lot of things gathered over many years into a small space is never easy... 

Where *should* the pop-up pirate game be slotted*?  Does my croquet set really belong with my shoes and glockenspiel**? Where is the best position for my top hat? My hourglass? My Thundercats VHS videotape or my Storyteller cassette tape?  How does the logical ordering of mask, stone and dried flowers work?

I'm finding my own order.

----

* The answer turned out to be on top of my PC under my workstation.  Sometimes these things are necessary.

** Another case of 'spiel'.

Spiel

After a brief discussion about the etymology of the word spiel I looked it up. 

I now know:
game in Afrikaans is wedstryd
game in Danish is leg, spil
game in Dutch is spel
game in French is jeu
game in German is Spiel, Partie, Spiel
game in Italian is giuoco
game in Latin is venatio, ludus
game in Norwegian is spill (which I knew already)
game in Portuguese is jogo
game in Spanish is baraja, juego
Game Translations

I am entertained, and vaguely satisfied, that spiel is rooted in game/play.

Depends on what you mean...

"Everyday words are inherently imprecise. They work well enough in everyday life that you don't notice. Words seem to work, just as Newtonian physics seems to. But you can always make them break if you push them far enough.

I would say that this has been, unfortunately for philosophy, the central fact of philosophy. Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist."

...

I think Wittgenstein deserves to be famous not for the discovery that most previous philosophy was a waste of time, which judging from the circumstantial evidence must have been made by every smart person who studied a little philosophy and declined to pursue it further, but for how he acted in response. Instead of quietly switching to another field, he made a fuss, from inside. He was Gorbachev.

The field of philosophy is still shaken from the fright Wittgenstein gave it. Later in life he spent a lot of time talking about how words worked. Since that seems to be allowed, that's what a lot of philosophers do now."

--- How to do philosophy (via Leuschke)