Weekend
I went to stay with Tall Girl at the weekend. She is indeed very tall.
It was lovely. We made the most both of an unusual state of not-rain and the delights of Hebden Bridge. Women appear to learn their role in life particularly early in Yorkshire.
The absence of rain continued in the afternoon allowing a longer and less sploshy walk than had been possible in the sluicing downpour of Friday.
We came across this family shearing operation – father with hand clippers, daughter in charge of the shorn fleeces, son bringing refreshments, dog peering fixedly through the bars of the make-shift fold, mother directing operations. “Don’t get his bum in” she said when I asked if I could take a picture. Ooops. Too late.
The circuit closed again back by the water, one of the many streams which cut through steep-sided valleys down to join Hebden Water which in turn joins the River Calder and on to the River Aire, the River Humber and on to the sea. Brown and frothy it rushed over the stones but caught in the circle of an abandoned mill pond its stillness reflected the gold of the late sun and the extraordinary, almost oppressive, green of tree and moss and fern.
That evening we went to see Gambian kora player Seikou Susso with his band at the Trades Club in town.
Check out the drummer in the middle there who seemed to spend the whole time peering anxiously at the kora and bass players in turn. The first half was good, but after the break they appeared to play the same songs all over again and Susso’s strange smile and habit of using the phrase “tickety boo” made the experience disturbingly surreal. However I’d become fascinated with the face of the fourth member of the band who played the djembe drum and spent most of my time trying to get a decent shot of him.
It’s lovely seeing an old friend. Like a home-from-home. And Maizy had a great time too.
The canal
A feral lily. Going away for the weekend tomorrow today (goodness it’s late), may be off line.
After the storm
The crap gets washed into the dips depressions.
(The camera on my phone is a higher quality and has far more options than my first digital camera.)
Stormy weather
Two hours the dry rasp of thunder had coughed its threat as blue gave way to cloud. Now the whole sky was layered with sheets of gunmetal grey. The leaves, stirred from their silence, hissed and seethed in dry warning of rain to come. I moved slowly across the darkening park, uncaring.
From the top of Primrose Hill the approaching storm was drawn like a dark curtain around our vantage. All others there had run aghast at the bruising of the sky. We sat enfolded in each other’s shelter watching the light shine through jagged rents closed over by skeins of rain.
The first flash of lightening was followed, seven seconds later, by a ripping crack rattling the ill-fitting sheet-iron of the sky. I always count the seconds between lightning and thunder, a habit from childhood. How far away? nearer or further?
We counted the gaps as the storm moved back and forth across the bowl of London spread before us. Five miles away, then six but seeming closer because dead ahead of the bench where we sat. There is something about the straight and forward which gives an illusion of proximity the oblique, the ascance, lacks.
Fat, lazy drops first. Plopping, big-polka-dotting the path.
When it was obvious it was headed right towards us we ran to meet it. Holding hands tumbling pell-mell down the steep slope. As we collided with the curtain of rain we stopped and kissed. Mouths mingling in the streaming water. My hands, spread, pulling his face to me as rain-rivulets washed over us, sealing in a seamless caul of water.
When the real rain came it was staccato, angry. Beating on bowed head, battering tears.
Waiting…
…secondborn (right) and his best friend in the whole world… karate grading…
they made it! red belts both!
Snakeoil
Hahahahahaha. Sorry, gotta laugh.
A company in Ireland purports to have made a perpetual motion / infinite energy generating machine.
A gallery in London is putting it on display. The exhibition/demonstration was due to open yesterday, 5 July.
Astonishingly, there appeared to be some problems.
KINETICA OPENING DELAYED: Due to some technical difficulties caused by the intense heat from camera lighting, Steorn’s demonstration of its ‘Orbo’ free energy technology has been slightly delayed. As a consequence, Kinetica Museum will not be open to the public today (6th July). A technical assessment is currently underway and information will be posted on the websites of Steorn and Kinetica as soon as it becomes available. We apologise for this delay and appreciate your patience.
So glad I went and had a nap yesterday instead of schlepping down to Spitalfields for the alleged opening of the exhibition.
Napping. Yes. I find napping the most effective form of energy generation, and it’s entirely unaffected by camera lighting. I know the laws of thermodynamics are soooo last millennium but I’m an old-fashioned girl.
And what do you know, turns out (as I browse around) those technical difficulties have turned out to be insurmountable…
Further to Steorn’s announcement yesterday (5th July) regarding the technical difficulties experienced during the installation of its “Orbo” technology at the Kinentica Museum in London, Steorn has decided to postpone the demonstration until further notice.
Sean McCarthy CEO stated that “technical problems arose during the installation of the demonstration unit in the display case on Wednesday evening. These problems were primarily due to excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area. Attempts to replace those parts affected by the heat led to further failures and as a result we have to postpone the public demonstration until a future date.”
He continued that “we apologise for the inconvenience caused to all the people who had made arrangements to visit the demonstration or were planning on viewing the demonstration online.”
Over the next few weeks the company will explore alternative dates for the public demonstration.
What, I wonder, is the purpose of all this. Some kind of elaborate campaign to publicise the gallery/museum? An elaborate hoax? An extreme form of self-humiliation? Because surely to goodness they don’t actually believe….
Title courtesy of Slashdot‘s tagging beta goodness.
Have I mentioned Lou Reed's arms?
Strange, it never occurred to me that anyone else in the audience might be fixated on these two parts of his anatomy but it turns out this predilection is shared by H, whose idea it was to go to see him perform his concept album Berlin in its entirety. And in fact, judging from the larger picture from which the above was cropped, performers as well as audience members shared the interest.
This was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, possibly the best (although to be honest I go to so few there isn’t much competition, but don’t let that get in the way of how fabulous this was).
Quite apart from the stunning quality of the musicianship it was the physicality of the thing that so enraptured… Lou Reed moving like an ancient and arthritic monkey yet taut as catgut stretched across a violin bridge, face contorted in intense concentration; the swaying of the angelically-gauze-robed New London Children’s Choir; Katie Krykant in her stunning scarlet dress seated quietly while silent then stretched tight, pulling the music out on threads between her hands.
The guitarist, Steve Hunter, played on the original album and has been described as “one of the best guitarists on the planet”. I’m not going to argue with that. An extraordinary presence, tall, inexplicably wearing what looked like a black wooly hat, he sometimes bounded around, at others reclined on a stool with one long leg extended out across the stage.
The intensity and rapport between all the musicians on stage (about 30 including the brass and string section from the London Metropolitan Orchestra was incredible. That’s drummer Tony “Thunder” Smith having some kind of out of body epiphany during Satellite of Love (played as one of three encores).
The only cavils I have are minor. The set by Julian Schnabel didn’t quite work for me. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t really very inspiring. And the presence of what appeared to be an old green sofa hanging against the backdrop was annoying. The back-projected film by Schnabel’s daughter Lola Schnabel featuring Emmanuelle Seigner as the album’s central character, Caroline, was a mimsy spun-sugar confection completely emotionally disengaged from the intensity of the music and narrative it was supposed to complement.
And what a narrative. Emotionally and physically abusive relationships, infidelity, jealousy, a mother having her children taken away, suicide by the blade. Quite apart from my own general history in the 36 hours before the concert I learnt of the suicide of a former colleague and discovered a friend had grown up in a series of foster homes after being removed from their mother’s care because of her repeated suicide attempts. Yes, life is indeed a bitch. However at the end of the performance I was left feeling profoundly uplifted. I’m not sure why this should be so, but guess that it’s partly sheer gratitude for what hasn’t happened and partly an ability now to look at pain without the fear that the mere act of looking will allow it to infect, overcome and destroy.
As for the pictures, I am so happy with them! I’ve long admired Caroline‘s spectacular concert photography but grabbed the long lens pretty much as an afterthought just before leaving the house. I think that given how far away from the stage we were it handled the challenge really well. I shoved the ISO up to 800, cleaned up the Olympus trademark noise afterwards; the tiny size and weight of the lens and camera means less shake, and, perhaps the most significant factor, Mr Reed kept quite still most of the time 🙂
I still really really want the new E-510 though. Can you imagine what my tiny light lens could produce on a body with built-in image stabilisation? and with (at last) an effort by Olympus to tackle the appallingly bad noise their cameras usually have at high speeds? It’s only a few millimeters larger and 85g heavier the the E-400… with the weak dollar I could get it for £400 when I go to NY in September… that’s £150 less than over here… nonononononono… no spending money. Tell me to stop. STOP! DON’T DO IT! NOOOOOOOOO!!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
PS Did you know Lou Reed meditates? He studies with Mingyur Rinpoche who’s a teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu lineage. Maybe it’s Rinpoche who’s taught Reed to smile. Yes, there is visual evidence. Lou Reed can smile. Well, after a fashion. Looks like he still needs practice. And he’s released an album, Hudson River Wind Meditations. User reviews are positive. The one music critic I read was, um, savage.
Have I mentioned Lou Reed’s arms?
Strange, it never occurred to me that anyone else in the audience might be fixated on these two parts of his anatomy but it turns out this predilection is shared by H, whose idea it was to go to see him perform his concept album Berlin in its entirety. And in fact, judging from the larger picture from which the above was cropped, performers as well as audience members shared the interest.
This was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, possibly the best (although to be honest I go to so few there isn’t much competition, but don’t let that get in the way of how fabulous this was).
Quite apart from the stunning quality of the musicianship it was the physicality of the thing that so enraptured… Lou Reed moving like an ancient and arthritic monkey yet taut as catgut stretched across a violin bridge, face contorted in intense concentration; the swaying of the angelically-gauze-robed New London Children’s Choir; Katie Krykant in her stunning scarlet dress seated quietly while silent then stretched tight, pulling the music out on threads between her hands.
The guitarist, Steve Hunter, played on the original album and has been described as “one of the best guitarists on the planet”. I’m not going to argue with that. An extraordinary presence, tall, inexplicably wearing what looked like a black wooly hat, he sometimes bounded around, at others reclined on a stool with one long leg extended out across the stage.
The intensity and rapport between all the musicians on stage (about 30 including the brass and string section from the London Metropolitan Orchestra was incredible. That’s drummer Tony “Thunder” Smith having some kind of out of body epiphany during Satellite of Love (played as one of three encores).
The only cavils I have are minor. The set by Julian Schnabel didn’t quite work for me. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t really very inspiring. And the presence of what appeared to be an old green sofa hanging against the backdrop was annoying. The back-projected film by Schnabel’s daughter Lola Schnabel featuring Emmanuelle Seigner as the album’s central character, Caroline, was a mimsy spun-sugar confection completely emotionally disengaged from the intensity of the music and narrative it was supposed to complement.
And what a narrative. Emotionally and physically abusive relationships, infidelity, jealousy, a mother having her children taken away, suicide by the blade. Quite apart from my own general history in the 36 hours before the concert I learnt of the suicide of a former colleague and discovered a friend had grown up in a series of foster homes after being removed from their mother’s care because of her repeated suicide attempts. Yes, life is indeed a bitch. However at the end of the performance I was left feeling profoundly uplifted. I’m not sure why this should be so, but guess that it’s partly sheer gratitude for what hasn’t happened and partly an ability now to look at pain without the fear that the mere act of looking will allow it to infect, overcome and destroy.
As for the pictures, I am so happy with them! I’ve long admired Caroline‘s spectacular concert photography but grabbed the long lens pretty much as an afterthought just before leaving the house. I think that given how far away from the stage we were it handled the challenge really well. I shoved the ISO up to 800, cleaned up the Olympus trademark noise afterwards; the tiny size and weight of the lens and camera means less shake, and, perhaps the most significant factor, Mr Reed kept quite still most of the time 🙂
I still really really want the new E-510 though. Can you imagine what my tiny light lens could produce on a body with built-in image stabilisation? and with (at last) an effort by Olympus to tackle the appallingly bad noise their cameras usually have at high speeds? It’s only a few millimeters larger and 85g heavier the the E-400… with the weak dollar I could get it for £400 when I go to NY in September… that’s £150 less than over here… nonononononono… no spending money. Tell me to stop. STOP! DON’T DO IT! NOOOOOOOOO!!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
PS Did you know Lou Reed meditates? He studies with Mingyur Rinpoche who’s a teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu lineage. Maybe it’s Rinpoche who’s taught Reed to smile. Yes, there is visual evidence. Lou Reed can smile. Well, after a fashion. Looks like he still needs practice. And he’s released an album, Hudson River Wind Meditations. User reviews are positive. The one music critic I read was, um, savage.
frizzyLogic 