A Dream of Writing

I dreamed I was writing a newspaper article. I was fighting with the wording of it. I was in a study but the room wasn’t mine. Object repetition in dreams is strange. An old friend of mine, Angus, used to always dream of a blue bong. It would always be there somewhere in the background of his dreams. For me also there are objects that turn up over and over again and which in some way are meaningful. A dark green standard desk lamp. Frosted glass with gold and black lettering. Sepia tones. Black coffee. A bright spotlight and darkened room. ‘H’ pencils in a jar. Blue-grey smoke from a cigarette in a green glass ashtray. …and thus this room that I find myself in is familiar, and yet unfamiliar at the same time.

Upon awaking I remembered the whole article that I had written and I felt pleased, because I knew it was the way I wished it to be, and it was finished. …The memory of the dream rapidly faded and now although I remember the intentions I had in writing the piece, the precise wording, that I had felt so pleased with, has gone completely, faded back into that dream world without me, as dreams are want to do. I can still see the title of my carefully crafted article:

The idea of a conspiracy: memes of greed

Maybe I’ll actually write it one day, and maybe I won’t. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I am reluctant to attempt to think further of writing down what I do remember of it. Already I am left with that feeling that anyone who has ever lost their work and yet been forced to attempt to re-write it from memory will be only too familiar with. The words are perhaps the same, but things are phrased not quite as they were before. Sentences do not gel together as they did in the original, and maybe, maybe it’s okay. However because it is discordant with what I remember of the original it sounds cacophonous as I speak the words in my head. It is an uncomfotable feeling.

6th Driving Lesson

I had my Sixth lesson today, and I think I like it best as it was today, when I have only one day inbetween my two weekly lessons. I had had to start the car with a hill start, and then it was back to the side streets for more cornering practice. I managed to slow it down a little and I think I dramatically improved the timing of my gear changes. Stalled a few times still and so got a bit frustrated. I understand how to drive, intellectually, but the body is taking a little longer to catch-up. As well as practicing getting around corners I also got to stretch my wheels by driving up to campus where I encountered my first mini roundabout.

It was good to get onto a straight road after all those corners and I got my trusty Renault Clio up to 50mph for the first time, sailing through gears happily and smoothly. On the way I got to negotiate my first stopped traffic lights which was relatively simple, although it was a strange feeling to be in stationary traffic and not be a passenger. I was sort of tempted to stare about, but knew I still had to keep my eyes on the road.

Once on campus as I already said I encountered my first mini roundabout, which was fairly obvious …and of course I got even more practice at driving carefully at low speeds.

I could learn to really hate speed bumps. I got to drive myself home for the first time today!

4th Driving Lesson

Despite the fact that I was looking forward to today’s lesson… I found my fourth driving lesson a little unsettling. Having a lesson the very next day after the previous one I didn’t have time to think about what I had and hadn’t achieved yesterday, to mentally go through it. …as a result I felt as though it hadn’t really sunk in as much.

Due to the fact that I had expressed suprise to Stuart at the change of location and the necessary change in driving style, he had decided to try and get me to practice cornering back off on the country roads so we could get in a bit of distance too. …and of course I’d got it into my head that because of what we did yesterday we would be again on the small roads practicing T junctions. So I was even more confused than normal.

Silverdale and Galloway Belted “Polo Cow”

At some point last summer, Kathryn and I, on one of our attempts at fresh air and an uncomputer oriented environment, ventured to Silverdale for a walk and an explore. Having had an enjoyable walk along the beach we cut back to the village along a path and through a field. A field with some lazily grazing cows in it. We were delighted to spot a cow that was completely black from nose to hoof, apart from a white circle all the way around its back and belly. We named it “Polo Cow”, and having giggled and marvelled at it for a time, we wended our way back to the car. I confess that I neglect to mention a slight foray to the pub on the way to the car, as this was back in the days when I still drank, but that is aside from the point.

On the bank holiday Saturday just gone we escaped Lancaster again to enjoy the sunshine! We went for a walk up and around Arnside knot, watched hot air balloons and a train crossing the bay and managed time for a quick coke in the Woodlands pub in Silverdale on the way home in the evening. As we were driving along Kathryn spotted a whole field of cows like “Polo Cow” and we began to suspect that it was in fact another breed of cow, and not your average everyday Fresian as we had assumed. Kathryn has just now discovered on-line that they are called “Galloway Belted” which is a pretty good description! I’ve included a picture for your entertainment, and to ensure that you can recognise one should you need to!

Galloway Belted also known as 'Polo Cow' (image)
Belted Galloway
Friesian (image)
Friesian

Galloway Belted also known as ‘Polo Cow’ and a Friesian for comparison.

Driving Lesson Cancelled

You wouldn’t believe how dissappointed I am not to be able to go driving today. I hadn’t realised how much I was looking forward to my lesson until it was canceled. Oh well next lesson on Wednesday 5th of May. Which seems a long way off… *sob*

Hermann Hesse

I’ve been re-reading some Hermann Hesse this evening and I came across a short story that I don’t recall. This despite the fact that it is the title piece of a book (Strange News From Another Star) that I know that I’ve read things from… Very strange. I enjoyed greatly and was encouraged to venture off and discover https://www.hhesse.de, an internet community of Hermann Hesse enthusiasts. I was a little disappointed to discover how much of the site is in German, but I guess that’s my fault for not speaking German, not theirs for speaking it. If anything would encourage me to read German it would be the work of Hermann Hesse.

1st Driving Lesson

Well I got through my first driving lesson without killing anyone! I’m learning to drive with a company local to Lancaster called KWIKTEST.

Whether however I will be quick to get to my test remains to be seen.

I didn’t do too much on my first lesson, but I enjoyed what I did do.

I started the car and set off a few times. The process being:

  • Start the Ignition
  • Check mirrors
  • Fully depress clutch pedal
  • Put the car into 1st gear (without looking at gear stick)
  • Gently depress gas pedal
  • Lift clutch to biting point
  • Release handbrake!

I then proceeded to drive in lots of figure of eights… I also managed a little reversing. Although I stalled a few times when attempting a hill start! *growl*

The thing I found most difficult was mirroring my hand movements on the steering wheel… I am supposed to practice with a frisbee… So I hope you can all picture me sitting in front of EastEnders driving along with my yellow frisbee!

Looking? Cinematography by Peter Mettler

I’ve been delighted today to rediscover the work of a canadian cinematographer, Peter Mettler. I’ve just been reading an article which refers to Mettlerism.

My previous familiarity with Petter Mettler was limited to his 11th film The Top of His Head from 1989.
Gus a successful satellite dish salesman is entirely caught up in the capitalist material world, until he meets the mysterious and alluring lucy, who is wanted by the cops for her radical performance pieces that espouse environmentalism. …but any description of the plot really doesn’t cover it.

It’s a film about breaking away from perceptions and finding other ways of seeing the world. Peter Mettler shows us this world through his cinematography. It’s about God as a satellite. It’s about working out which side of the net the fish is on. It’s about a rust map. It’s about last looks at the world. …and it’s about giving birth on a train to a monkey with a port on the top of his head.

The visual imagery is so rich that it becomes a valid substitute for plot in the film. Although Kathryn, who fell asleep two out of the three times I tried to make her watch this film, would probably beg to differ. I remember fondly for example the scene where there is a plasic curtain on the other side of which there appears to be a strobing light. As we pass the thick plastic we see that the strobe effect is created by a half naked man swinging an enormous storm lamp around and around on a very long metal chain.

I realised that one of the reasons I’d liked the top of his head was the cinematographer-writer-director Peter’s expression of the looking (and the perspective of looking) changing the thing that it seen. The painting of Gus by his uncle for example, and the fish in or out of the nets.

This quote is from his most recent film: “Maybe there is a difference between looking for something and looking at something, when you are a part of what you are looking at, and you look at it and it looks back at you.” (Gambling, Gods and LSD, 2002).

The Top of His Head does for Mairzy Doats what Reservoir Dogs did for Stuck In The Middle With You.

Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn’t you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn’t you?

What will they say of me when I die?

What will they say of me when I die? What will they write of me when I’m dead?

Reports say, as they do with all Elderly and Terminally Ill people, that he died “Peacefully In His Sleep”, which I suppose is a bit more comforting to other people than “He died gasping for breath, flailing in horrible pain as his various bodily systems shut down.”

Will I make it to elderly? Will you?

I was always petrified of aging. I could cope with death, it never held any fear. Cessation is obvious, it contains nothing to logically be feared, and afterwards, well, then we’ll see. …but slow, living decay on the other hand. My fears where not aided by my experience of old people. The smell of old people; their breath, their hair, skin and nails. Growing increasingly aware that to age meant to lose one’s faculties. The encroaching inability to hear, see, smell or taste… This filled me with horror. That the growth and developement period of ones life could reach an end and then the begining of a downward sprial as we slowly and painfully slip off the mortal coil was I guess my biggest teenage fear. Aside obviously from Nuclear War and the possibility that the State’s secret police would once more come to bang down the doors.

I just tried to check my spelling of cessation and instead was directed to “caseation” which I suppose puts a pretty good case forward for being repulsed by death too! Go look it up if you don’t believe me.

It is ironic I suppose that my role-models all seem to manifest themselves as ageless or increasingly active and alive with age.

I never thought I would live long enough to complain of growing old. I remember telling someone when I was pissed that I didn’t want to wake up one day and realise that I was too old to die young. I am still genuinely suprised to have made it into adulthood. I am starting to consider that maybe I will grow old after all. I think by so expecting my own death I was spared the consideration of my aging. Now that I am forced to consider it anew, it doesn’t seem half so frightening.

In the same way that children grow up faster and faster, old people grow old slower and slower.

In the playgrounds you’ll hear them, picturing empty cold hospital corridors, asking who wants to live to be 100.
…and giggling, like school children themselves, you’ll hear the new old folk tell you the answer, any 99 year old.