May 18th 1870
I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful than the bluebell I have been looking at . I know the beauty of our Lord by it. It[s inscape] is [mixed of] strength and grace, like an ash [tree]. The head is strongly drawn over [backwards] and arched down like a cutwater [drawing itslef back from the line of a keel]……………….…
In his journal entry for 9 May 1871 Hopkins says:
In the little wood opposite the light they stood in blackish spreads or sheddings like spots on a snake. The heads are then like thongs and solemn in grain and grape-colour. But in the clough through the light they come in falls of sky-colour washing the brows and slacks of the ground with vein-blue, thickening at the double, vertical themselves and the young grass and brake-fern combed vertical, but the brake struck the upright of all this with winged transomes. It was a lovely sight. - The bluebells in your hand baffle you with their inscape, made to every sense. If you draw your fingers through them they are lodged and struggle with a shock of wet heads; the long stalks rub and click and flatten to a fan on one another like your fingers themselves would when you passed the palms hard across one another, making a brittle rub and jostle like the noise of a hurdle strained by leaning against; then there is the faint honey smell and in the mouth the sweet gum when you bite them. ………The overhung necks – for growing they are little more than a staff with a simple crook but in water, where the stiffen, they take stronger turns , in the head like the waves riding through a whip that is being smacked – what with these overhung necks and what with the crisped ruffled bells dropping mostly on one side and the gloss that they have at their footstalks the have an air of the knights at chess…………………………….
YES.
stunning detail. Although... did he say 'when you bite them'? I have to admit that for all my adoration of bluebells, I have never thought to do that.
I remember, last summer, in Cornwall, I wanted to be consumed by nature - it was far too glorious and I was far too miserable for any other course of action to really appeal. I had hay fever so I was functioning in a different - lacking blood, vision, well being and general sense - reality. The weather was beautiful, and we were staying in a tiny white washed hostel right near the cliff edge, all dark stone and crashing waves and heath stretching behind us to an old disused church. There was a moment when I was walking to the cliff edge because it seemed sensible to throw myself off it, because there were seals below, and the sea was the exact shade of my emotions, when Dr Kennedy, bless him, saved my life by popping out of the ether in all his beautiful professorish dashing glory and discussing some book or other with me.
I think he knew, although all the teachers were incredibly kind to me, I think not only because I could hold a decent conversation about something which we both could find interesting, nor simply because I happened to be getting pretty lucky with the cards on that trip, but because they could tell that I vaguely disliked being stuck with the bunch of fools which comprised my perception of the other students. So instead of leaping off a cliff I wrote a gothic short story about a pair of lovers falling off a cliff, or some such, and won the gothic story prize, which was dark chocolate, and thus, like all actions, it linked, in the end, back to food.
(ps. this is not really a story about an averted suicide. Well, it is in some ways, although I wasn't looking for death, and I refuse to say that this is really how one would write such a thing out.)
Monday 31 May 2010
Sunday 30 May 2010
ugh
been reading 'till we have faces'
imagine not having a face.
that would be really annoying.
if Inman didn't have a face then Frazier couldn't have written the line:
'She was so beautiful it made his cheekbones hurt'
in Cold Mountain. And that would be terrible.
most of the time i want to go be that hermit goat woman from Cold Mountain.
imagine not having a face.
that would be really annoying.
if Inman didn't have a face then Frazier couldn't have written the line:
'She was so beautiful it made his cheekbones hurt'
in Cold Mountain. And that would be terrible.
most of the time i want to go be that hermit goat woman from Cold Mountain.
making jokes about the way things are
I’ve been reading Scottish fairy tales. They’re a bit odd. Then I looked up the way other languages start and end such stories. Some of the translations made me laugh. So ours is: ‘Once upon a time... and they lived happily ever after.’
Or, in German: Es war einmal... 'Once there was...'...und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute. '...and if they haven't died yet, they are still living today.'
Or, in Georgian: "Iko da ara iko ra, iko..." 'There was, and there was not, there was...'
Or, Spanish: Érase/Había una vez... 'There was, once...' Common ending: ... y vivieron felices para siempre/y comieron perdices. '...and they lived happy forever/and ate partridges.'
Or, Turkish: Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde... 'Once there was, once there wasn't. In the old times, the sieve in a stack of hay...'
Amusement. Partridges and sieves in stacks of hay. People who, if they haven’t died, are alive.
Contrastingly, I’ve had Ani Difranco on a constant loop in my mind for the last few days, mainly ‘You had time’, or ‘light of some kind’. It’s funny having her voice in my head, because she’s really different from me in so many ways, but kind of similar in others. I guess mainly I just like the lack of certainty, the lyrics, the ambiguity, the fragile confidence.
Sometimes, I agree that people are 90% metaphor. Sometimes I realise that there are things in life which make me sad. Sometimes I pull apart stranger’s fences.
I’m ridiculously excited about someone posting my something. My entire day has been made by the texts of this morning. I felt like rolling over and going back to sleep after them because the day couldn’t possibly get better. And then I tasted the pillow with my grin and realised I couldn’t hide from myself for ever.
Yay for shirts belonging to other people and Alice blowing beer breath at me in the middle of the night. Yay for baked beans and crisps wraps at 1am. Yay for making out next to Mein Kampf, or in the bath tub. Yay for being just a leeetle bit drunk. Not so much yay for having to wake up at 7, and then crawling back to bed only to be woken up by mothers ranting about why whiskey is bad. She is wrong. Whiskey makes the world go round (at least, vision wise it does).
Or, in German: Es war einmal... 'Once there was...'...und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute. '...and if they haven't died yet, they are still living today.'
Or, in Georgian: "Iko da ara iko ra, iko..." 'There was, and there was not, there was...'
Or, Spanish: Érase/Había una vez... 'There was, once...' Common ending: ... y vivieron felices para siempre/y comieron perdices. '...and they lived happy forever/and ate partridges.'
Or, Turkish: Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde... 'Once there was, once there wasn't. In the old times, the sieve in a stack of hay...'
Amusement. Partridges and sieves in stacks of hay. People who, if they haven’t died, are alive.
Contrastingly, I’ve had Ani Difranco on a constant loop in my mind for the last few days, mainly ‘You had time’, or ‘light of some kind’. It’s funny having her voice in my head, because she’s really different from me in so many ways, but kind of similar in others. I guess mainly I just like the lack of certainty, the lyrics, the ambiguity, the fragile confidence.
Sometimes, I agree that people are 90% metaphor. Sometimes I realise that there are things in life which make me sad. Sometimes I pull apart stranger’s fences.
I’m ridiculously excited about someone posting my something. My entire day has been made by the texts of this morning. I felt like rolling over and going back to sleep after them because the day couldn’t possibly get better. And then I tasted the pillow with my grin and realised I couldn’t hide from myself for ever.
Yay for shirts belonging to other people and Alice blowing beer breath at me in the middle of the night. Yay for baked beans and crisps wraps at 1am. Yay for making out next to Mein Kampf, or in the bath tub. Yay for being just a leeetle bit drunk. Not so much yay for having to wake up at 7, and then crawling back to bed only to be woken up by mothers ranting about why whiskey is bad. She is wrong. Whiskey makes the world go round (at least, vision wise it does).
Wednesday 26 May 2010
I’m a ridiculous person
One of the reasons I started to really like Jeff Buckley is that one of his live recordings, having played a small set of random noises (helpfully a lyrics page types these out as: ‘Hallah hallah hallah ouh !’ – this annoyed me as it made it seem less spontaneous. Silly people who write down his every movement...) he seems to lean towards the microphone, and confides in his audience ‘I’m a ridiculous person, and you’re lucky you’ve paid no money to see me’.
That’s how I mostly feel. And the way he pronounces ‘no money’ just makes me feel happy about the world. Song for today = So Real by Jeff Buckley. Anyway. Last night, I got home and, slightly tipsy from lots of jack of the daniels variety, I stumbled around my room silently yelling white stripes songs (yesterday’s song would have to be ‘fell in love with a girl’ by The White Stripes’). I’m not sure why. It seemed like the antithesis of the relatively relaxed happy time I’d been having. I just can’t take myself seriously enough to do something normal like go sleep. With the result that one of my eyes looks like the ood eyes when they go angry and evil.
And then this morning I’d forgotten to set my alarm clock and the headmaster was standing outside my classroom and I was like HI HOW ARE YOU.
He smiled vaguely and said good morning. Once when I, in similarly panic stricken mode, said HAI at him he answered HAI back in almost the same tone and everyone looked at us like we were loons. I wasn’t sure if he was vaguely mocking me or just absorbing some me or whether actually me and this posh gentle old guy were actually twins separated at birth.
At what point do I realise that I need to build a small shelter, fill it with dark chocolate and whiskey, but NOT COFFEE, and hide in an inebriated state there for the rest of my existence, which, with only those two things as sustenance, will probably not be long?
Kissing on the beach is... nice. BON JOURNO.
That’s how I mostly feel. And the way he pronounces ‘no money’ just makes me feel happy about the world. Song for today = So Real by Jeff Buckley. Anyway. Last night, I got home and, slightly tipsy from lots of jack of the daniels variety, I stumbled around my room silently yelling white stripes songs (yesterday’s song would have to be ‘fell in love with a girl’ by The White Stripes’). I’m not sure why. It seemed like the antithesis of the relatively relaxed happy time I’d been having. I just can’t take myself seriously enough to do something normal like go sleep. With the result that one of my eyes looks like the ood eyes when they go angry and evil.
And then this morning I’d forgotten to set my alarm clock and the headmaster was standing outside my classroom and I was like HI HOW ARE YOU.
He smiled vaguely and said good morning. Once when I, in similarly panic stricken mode, said HAI at him he answered HAI back in almost the same tone and everyone looked at us like we were loons. I wasn’t sure if he was vaguely mocking me or just absorbing some me or whether actually me and this posh gentle old guy were actually twins separated at birth.
At what point do I realise that I need to build a small shelter, fill it with dark chocolate and whiskey, but NOT COFFEE, and hide in an inebriated state there for the rest of my existence, which, with only those two things as sustenance, will probably not be long?
Kissing on the beach is... nice. BON JOURNO.
Friday 21 May 2010
The thief of fire
Location: Forest of Arden.
Person: Silvius
Time: outside of
I love Silvius, he actually makes the ridiculousness of the literary fantasy which As You Like It verges on falling into vaguely attractive. His imagery is borrowed and predictable but then by now almost every line of Shakespeare has become so because Shakespeare is everywhere. This is not to say he is not great, but when you take Silvius out of the culture into which he was written he starts to sound rather sweet. When you read his lines they’re like cartoons. Kind of like French love letters.
Speaking of which, Rimbaud Rimbaud Rimbaud. Gorgeous words. Thought he was a visionary and you can see why – he’s mental. One of the few writers I try to ignore the legacy of because it’s just depressing that the thoughts which I borrow to describe emotions are so utterly stale. 'The point is to arrive at the unknown by the dissoluteness of all the senses. The suffering are enormous, but one has to be strong, to be born poet, and I have recognized myself to be a poet. It is not my fault at all. It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought.'
I adore those lines because of the ludicrous confidence blazing through them. If everyone thought as absolutely as that the world would either explode, burning, or become utopia.
Crying for the moon. Moon = love because no matter how many children cry for the moon, the moon will never be theirs. Don’t talk to me about flags – that wasn’t the moon they stuck their capitalist emblems into, that was space, and science, and material reality. The moon will never be captured because the moon is an idea, which exists outside of dimensionality. Like the Forest of Arden.
Disconnect... disconnect... disconnect...
The Cooper Temple Clause’s ‘Disconnect’ is a bit of a rave.
Person: Silvius
Time: outside of
I love Silvius, he actually makes the ridiculousness of the literary fantasy which As You Like It verges on falling into vaguely attractive. His imagery is borrowed and predictable but then by now almost every line of Shakespeare has become so because Shakespeare is everywhere. This is not to say he is not great, but when you take Silvius out of the culture into which he was written he starts to sound rather sweet. When you read his lines they’re like cartoons. Kind of like French love letters.
Speaking of which, Rimbaud Rimbaud Rimbaud. Gorgeous words. Thought he was a visionary and you can see why – he’s mental. One of the few writers I try to ignore the legacy of because it’s just depressing that the thoughts which I borrow to describe emotions are so utterly stale. 'The point is to arrive at the unknown by the dissoluteness of all the senses. The suffering are enormous, but one has to be strong, to be born poet, and I have recognized myself to be a poet. It is not my fault at all. It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought.'
I adore those lines because of the ludicrous confidence blazing through them. If everyone thought as absolutely as that the world would either explode, burning, or become utopia.
Crying for the moon. Moon = love because no matter how many children cry for the moon, the moon will never be theirs. Don’t talk to me about flags – that wasn’t the moon they stuck their capitalist emblems into, that was space, and science, and material reality. The moon will never be captured because the moon is an idea, which exists outside of dimensionality. Like the Forest of Arden.
Disconnect... disconnect... disconnect...
The Cooper Temple Clause’s ‘Disconnect’ is a bit of a rave.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
it plays tricks with the eye
So I guess that shouldn’t have been a surprise. Many things shouldn’t be, and are, and that was the most that. But my room has these paper cranes in it and they’re making me cry now. It shows how little I’ve grown up, I guess, because this is the exact emotion I felt when I was eight and the other girls tried to poison me (okay I now know that mashed berries mixed up with spit do not necessarily make you die, but at the time I was convinced that such things would cause immediately cessation of existence) and I accidently shoved away the only one there who was actually my friend. She fell over backwards and hurt herself, I don’t know. She would never speak to me again, even when the teachers tried to make us. It was kind of silly I guess because I hadn’t meant to hurt her, I’d just been kicking out at the posh little girls who were trying to force this gungy crimson spitty mess down my throat. And she cut me off when I tried to apologise.
Strange thing is, she was much better off for not being my friend – everyone accepted her into the group of lets hate me and thus I ended up with fewer friends, which was unfortunate as the remaining ones were all short and jumpy and it resulted in me getting black eyes from short friends leaping into me. I was a sad lonely ugly little thing.
Rather a lot of me is sitting here staring at this and going you are so pathetic, stop feeling sorry for yourself, she’s utterly right but it was your decision. And the rest of me is sobbing and wondering why I always get things wrong. And there’s a small hard chunk in the middle with its hands over its ears going ‘lalala’.
There are birds and bats outside my window and they are all moving too fast and looking kind of confused to all be awake at the same time.
Shy, by Ani Difranco: ‘taste the pillow with my grin’.
Strange thing is, she was much better off for not being my friend – everyone accepted her into the group of lets hate me and thus I ended up with fewer friends, which was unfortunate as the remaining ones were all short and jumpy and it resulted in me getting black eyes from short friends leaping into me. I was a sad lonely ugly little thing.
Rather a lot of me is sitting here staring at this and going you are so pathetic, stop feeling sorry for yourself, she’s utterly right but it was your decision. And the rest of me is sobbing and wondering why I always get things wrong. And there’s a small hard chunk in the middle with its hands over its ears going ‘lalala’.
There are birds and bats outside my window and they are all moving too fast and looking kind of confused to all be awake at the same time.
Shy, by Ani Difranco: ‘taste the pillow with my grin’.
Only whiskey and disregard
"[communists] do not put people to the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc: on the contrary, they are well aware that egoism, just as much as self-sacrifice, is...a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals."
My brother has that written somewhere. Yay.
Narcotics.
My fifty pence piece (last of the moneys of Florence. A dying race, as I’m now giving it to Alice. Who is sitting next to me.) has a Johnson’s dictionary definition for it. Fifty is Saxon, pence plural of penny. They really do think we’re idiots. It’s awesome-looking though.
Apparently I understand, Alice has decided.
Judgement has been passed.
By Alice, so it’s good.
Two nights ago (which is, you know, the best time to write about) I woke up in the middle of the night terrified because there was tapping and whispering at my window. Except, there wasn’t. I think maybe I’m nervous at the minute, that’s why my brain told me that. Or there could be ghosts.
Alice yawned. I’m being boring.
Facebook: lalala ‘likes Summer, Sun, Sex, Smiling like an idiot when you receive a cute text. and Having A Relationship Were You Can Act Like Total Retards Together.
9 minutes ago
‘
Alice: second one would be better if ‘were’ was spelled right.
This made me happy. As they’d been making me feel mildly nauseated before.
Song of today is Pure Reason Revolution's 'I) Keep Me Sane/Insane'.
Someone give me ideas of books I should get my school to buy as prizes for me. I’m thinking, Keats’s letters. That’s the extent of my thoughts and I need at least three books. I could buy the letters in the massive hard backed copy which comes in three volumes but that just seems excessive. If quite exciting.
Okay I fail at life. Have a lovely day.
My brother has that written somewhere. Yay.
Narcotics.
My fifty pence piece (last of the moneys of Florence. A dying race, as I’m now giving it to Alice. Who is sitting next to me.) has a Johnson’s dictionary definition for it. Fifty is Saxon, pence plural of penny. They really do think we’re idiots. It’s awesome-looking though.
Apparently I understand, Alice has decided.
Judgement has been passed.
By Alice, so it’s good.
Two nights ago (which is, you know, the best time to write about) I woke up in the middle of the night terrified because there was tapping and whispering at my window. Except, there wasn’t. I think maybe I’m nervous at the minute, that’s why my brain told me that. Or there could be ghosts.
Alice yawned. I’m being boring.
Facebook: lalala ‘likes Summer, Sun, Sex, Smiling like an idiot when you receive a cute text. and Having A Relationship Were You Can Act Like Total Retards Together.
9 minutes ago
‘
Alice: second one would be better if ‘were’ was spelled right.
This made me happy. As they’d been making me feel mildly nauseated before.
Song of today is Pure Reason Revolution's 'I) Keep Me Sane/Insane'.
Someone give me ideas of books I should get my school to buy as prizes for me. I’m thinking, Keats’s letters. That’s the extent of my thoughts and I need at least three books. I could buy the letters in the massive hard backed copy which comes in three volumes but that just seems excessive. If quite exciting.
Okay I fail at life. Have a lovely day.
Sunday 16 May 2010
cross your fingers
I’ve been writing writing writing. Supposedly essays, but I just looked and I’ve written about ten pages, and only one of them is constructive towards my formal education. I’m listening to Jonny Cash. It was Laura Marling all day and then suddenly I felt the urge for the beginning of his cover of ‘The Man Comes Around’ and then suddenly I was in a full on splurge of him. Or at least, his covers, ‘American IV’ cd. I know his actual songs too well to listen to them anymore, so I’m exploring this stuff. For about the billionth time.
So what was all that writing about?
It’d be pointless to write it all out again on here. Some of it sprung from this comment in my geography book about whether a life without conflict is possible or even desirable, as conflict might bring about progress and development. I was like, wow, unspecific. Which shouldn’t have been my reaction seeing how it was in a geography textbook under the heading of conflict in development or something. Anyway, it got me thinking about whether people make trouble for themselves or whether problems are something which happens at or onto someone. And how people try to escape or work out conflicts, which in the end might be a positive thing because they develop as a person because of it. Maybe. Or something. I guess it’s all that swearing on Friday night; it’s got into my head. I’m all resolutions and stuff.
I then read this quote when I attempted to plan an essay for English lit. The quote, if anyone’s interested, was ‘words are unreliable ciphers in relation to things and can as easily be twisted into nonsense as they can be used to create meaning’. Half way through the first word (yes, ‘words’), my brain changed it to be about me. Egocentric much? Not entirely flattering of my brain, too. I wrote a load about that. But to return to the quote, I kind of like it. I’m always finding new ways of expressing why I love words, and here’s one. I can hide in them like in that movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Which I didn’t particularly like as a movie but which was amazing as an idea.
I then drew a picture of me laughing and crying in a corner because Alice’s description of how I spend my time at school got into my head. Fool. I don’t do that. Much. All the time. Often.
Is it odd to wonder what you would do if [specific person of your choosing] died?
Then I got water in my eyes (actually water, my sister kind of decided that I was in fact a small, dried up plant which needed urgent watering) and I ended up in a small damp heap.
Which resulted in random phrases (as all good things do), such as ‘we crumpled petals so that we could touch the stars.’
Today’s song – Jonny Cash’s Hurt. I know, the obvious choice, but he’s a beautiful man.
What kills us?
What thrills us?
Why are eyes important?
Do words taste stale?
How can anyone be really happy?
Who do you think you are?
What is more important - a face or a name?
Why do people lose their temper?
What is it about us that we have in common?
Do you consider yourself similar to others?
So what was all that writing about?
It’d be pointless to write it all out again on here. Some of it sprung from this comment in my geography book about whether a life without conflict is possible or even desirable, as conflict might bring about progress and development. I was like, wow, unspecific. Which shouldn’t have been my reaction seeing how it was in a geography textbook under the heading of conflict in development or something. Anyway, it got me thinking about whether people make trouble for themselves or whether problems are something which happens at or onto someone. And how people try to escape or work out conflicts, which in the end might be a positive thing because they develop as a person because of it. Maybe. Or something. I guess it’s all that swearing on Friday night; it’s got into my head. I’m all resolutions and stuff.
I then read this quote when I attempted to plan an essay for English lit. The quote, if anyone’s interested, was ‘words are unreliable ciphers in relation to things and can as easily be twisted into nonsense as they can be used to create meaning’. Half way through the first word (yes, ‘words’), my brain changed it to be about me. Egocentric much? Not entirely flattering of my brain, too. I wrote a load about that. But to return to the quote, I kind of like it. I’m always finding new ways of expressing why I love words, and here’s one. I can hide in them like in that movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Which I didn’t particularly like as a movie but which was amazing as an idea.
I then drew a picture of me laughing and crying in a corner because Alice’s description of how I spend my time at school got into my head. Fool. I don’t do that. Much. All the time. Often.
Is it odd to wonder what you would do if [specific person of your choosing] died?
Then I got water in my eyes (actually water, my sister kind of decided that I was in fact a small, dried up plant which needed urgent watering) and I ended up in a small damp heap.
Which resulted in random phrases (as all good things do), such as ‘we crumpled petals so that we could touch the stars.’
Today’s song – Jonny Cash’s Hurt. I know, the obvious choice, but he’s a beautiful man.
What kills us?
What thrills us?
Why are eyes important?
Do words taste stale?
How can anyone be really happy?
Who do you think you are?
What is more important - a face or a name?
Why do people lose their temper?
What is it about us that we have in common?
Do you consider yourself similar to others?
Saturday 15 May 2010
in a moment of almost-unbearable vision...
I think tonight could have been classed as a blog rave seeing how all the participant read this. As Alice (absolutely the aforementioned) would say, shout out to them.
‘Although our bones they may break and our souls separate’... I’d hate to have a broken soul. All black and dripping shards inside or jagged like Cynthia Voigt describes a broken heart in ‘A Solitary Blue’. It’d be worse than a broken heart. Or a broken phone for that matter. Because it would mean that something, or someone had not only stolen your emotions but broken your very essence. I guess you’d have to be really close to someone for them to do that.
There are sometimes a billion thoughts in my head and I can’t say any of them. Today people got the tail ends of thoughts, like I couldn’t say anything that I was really thinking, it was just the final worded version which appeared in the real world. I think this may be why I adore Joanna Newsom’s music – she’s nuts but it works because they’re like echoes of reality stitched into fantasy and all that harp stuff. Her voice perfectly encapsulates that duality in its crazy soundingness.
Speaking of crazy soundingness (it’s not a word) I think that it’s probably bad that people get into my head so easily. Even that guy with the kettle, in the schizophrenic advert (no word spellchecker, I did not mean scherzo, that means a joke, like a violin piece called that with a hundred jolly jumping notes which has nothing that much to do with what I’m talking about unless you add in some harpsichord and a drum beat freaking out in which case it becomes a little like all these thoughts in my head) is now implanted into my consciousness. I just had a discussion with him in my head, like the scene near the beginning of The Truman Show where Jim Carey is like, ‘promise me you’ll eat me’ at the mirror, except obviously mine was more like, ‘LOOK WE’RE BOTH MAKING CUPS OF TEA’. ‘O really well I’m diagnosed as mentally ill and you’re not and there’s little chance you ever will be except for someone to tell you that the little voice which is supposed to get swept away with emotions and drugs and so on is particularly persistent and furthermore you’re a bit silly because you’re terrified of being like me so why do you fake sympathy?’
Yeah, so, everyone, that’s what goes on in MY head...
So I drew a picture today of a little stick house and it was orange and green and there was a big red flower next to it called Florence. Anyone who’s been doing their homework and reading J M G Le Clezio’s Terra Amata will know that I was in fact making a direct literary statement, about how in that book the child’s picture has people and roads and my one had words and a washing machine. I guess it says something for what goes on in my head that that was the first thing I thought of when I saw crayons.
I want a pet Matt fish. They’re epic. It destroyed me to leave that one staring at the chefs. I think that probably sounds mad to the world at large but there are the select individuals with whom I participated in search and retrieve pizza times and they will know what I’m on about.
I won a load of swimming races today. My mum and my sister came to watch and I think my sister was, for the first time in a while, proud of me. I then went and robbed her piggy bank. Maybe I’ve only got sawdust inside me.
In case you didn’t already know, my song of the day is Joanna Newsom’s Sawdust and Diamonds, because it’s stuck in my head right now and is particularly nutty, and I think it’s beautiful.
‘Although our bones they may break and our souls separate’... I’d hate to have a broken soul. All black and dripping shards inside or jagged like Cynthia Voigt describes a broken heart in ‘A Solitary Blue’. It’d be worse than a broken heart. Or a broken phone for that matter. Because it would mean that something, or someone had not only stolen your emotions but broken your very essence. I guess you’d have to be really close to someone for them to do that.
There are sometimes a billion thoughts in my head and I can’t say any of them. Today people got the tail ends of thoughts, like I couldn’t say anything that I was really thinking, it was just the final worded version which appeared in the real world. I think this may be why I adore Joanna Newsom’s music – she’s nuts but it works because they’re like echoes of reality stitched into fantasy and all that harp stuff. Her voice perfectly encapsulates that duality in its crazy soundingness.
Speaking of crazy soundingness (it’s not a word) I think that it’s probably bad that people get into my head so easily. Even that guy with the kettle, in the schizophrenic advert (no word spellchecker, I did not mean scherzo, that means a joke, like a violin piece called that with a hundred jolly jumping notes which has nothing that much to do with what I’m talking about unless you add in some harpsichord and a drum beat freaking out in which case it becomes a little like all these thoughts in my head) is now implanted into my consciousness. I just had a discussion with him in my head, like the scene near the beginning of The Truman Show where Jim Carey is like, ‘promise me you’ll eat me’ at the mirror, except obviously mine was more like, ‘LOOK WE’RE BOTH MAKING CUPS OF TEA’. ‘O really well I’m diagnosed as mentally ill and you’re not and there’s little chance you ever will be except for someone to tell you that the little voice which is supposed to get swept away with emotions and drugs and so on is particularly persistent and furthermore you’re a bit silly because you’re terrified of being like me so why do you fake sympathy?’
Yeah, so, everyone, that’s what goes on in MY head...
So I drew a picture today of a little stick house and it was orange and green and there was a big red flower next to it called Florence. Anyone who’s been doing their homework and reading J M G Le Clezio’s Terra Amata will know that I was in fact making a direct literary statement, about how in that book the child’s picture has people and roads and my one had words and a washing machine. I guess it says something for what goes on in my head that that was the first thing I thought of when I saw crayons.
I want a pet Matt fish. They’re epic. It destroyed me to leave that one staring at the chefs. I think that probably sounds mad to the world at large but there are the select individuals with whom I participated in search and retrieve pizza times and they will know what I’m on about.
I won a load of swimming races today. My mum and my sister came to watch and I think my sister was, for the first time in a while, proud of me. I then went and robbed her piggy bank. Maybe I’ve only got sawdust inside me.
In case you didn’t already know, my song of the day is Joanna Newsom’s Sawdust and Diamonds, because it’s stuck in my head right now and is particularly nutty, and I think it’s beautiful.
Monday 10 May 2010
final article for school paper
‘The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.’ Milan Kundera writes in Immortality, referring to Goethe. Kundera builds up the fictional character, Agnes, through continual references back to the real world. We see the inspiration of Agnes, and hear or are shown where he collects the names for her acquaintances from. Kundera clearly has a general theme which he wishes to explore, but rather than accomplishing that through a conventional story, he creates an entire world through which to weave his ideas.
For example, he explores how a person exists as an individual. ‘In our world’ he tells us, ‘where there are more and more faces, more and more alike, it is difficult for an individual to reinforce the originality of the self and to become convinced of its inimitable uniqueness.’
Uniqueness. As I reach the end of my time at Canford, I find myself wondering what all the bother of my time here has been about. With the headmaster asking me to avoid the temptation of being a ‘rebel without reason’, and almost daily strange inquiries from all sides (‘are you wearing a non school jumper?’) I feel there’s been an unnecessary amount of bother from everyone. As Kundera says, I try to subtract everything that is exterior or bothered, in order to come closer to my sheer essence (at the risk that zero lies at the bottom of the subtraction), and I’m told that I have to wear shoes. In order to keep my existence visible, I add attributes to my identity (with the risk that the essence of the self may be buried by the additional attributes) and I’m asked not to wear wellies. We all know the moans, and they’re boring.
Mr. Vandvik says to write about all the things which make me who I am. I guess the constant war of attrition I have enjoyed against the staff members here has helped form my personality. I am now an expert on pushing the boundaries just enough to annoy everyone.
Perhaps I am simply being petty, caring about material things such as uniform. Who cares about clothes enough to really rebel for them? I certainly have never felt that strongly that clothes convey one’s personality. Nevertheless, they are, in some ways, symbolic. It doesn’t matter at all whether material things resemble one’s soul, the point is that the thing becomes one of the attributes of the self. It’s always interesting to try to imagine what the teachers who ask me not to break the rules think my motives are. Perhaps they imagine I am a crazed anarchist who is utilising the imagology of creative clothing to convey my ultimate meaning of creative ideology. I’m sure the worry keeps them up at night. They’re wrong, though. Just like if you think that Kundera is trying to press a message through the beautiful writing in his books you’d be wrong.
But this article does have a message. Around me, the good burghers of this magazine are erupting with displeasure at the censorship which is, yet again, being displayed towards our paper. As usual, the writers have put their heart and soul into a beautiful article, perhaps mildly full of assumptions, and they are beaten into the dust of censorship, bemoaning the prospects of this magazine for getting anywhere, ever. The words of hope and courage with which the new editors greeted the magazine are being rapidly forgotten. But, like the issue over uniform, this is old news. We, the people of Canford, are told to grow up and realise that freedom of speech is not a reality when you’re not an adult. Oh wait, we are.
For example, he explores how a person exists as an individual. ‘In our world’ he tells us, ‘where there are more and more faces, more and more alike, it is difficult for an individual to reinforce the originality of the self and to become convinced of its inimitable uniqueness.’
Uniqueness. As I reach the end of my time at Canford, I find myself wondering what all the bother of my time here has been about. With the headmaster asking me to avoid the temptation of being a ‘rebel without reason’, and almost daily strange inquiries from all sides (‘are you wearing a non school jumper?’) I feel there’s been an unnecessary amount of bother from everyone. As Kundera says, I try to subtract everything that is exterior or bothered, in order to come closer to my sheer essence (at the risk that zero lies at the bottom of the subtraction), and I’m told that I have to wear shoes. In order to keep my existence visible, I add attributes to my identity (with the risk that the essence of the self may be buried by the additional attributes) and I’m asked not to wear wellies. We all know the moans, and they’re boring.
Mr. Vandvik says to write about all the things which make me who I am. I guess the constant war of attrition I have enjoyed against the staff members here has helped form my personality. I am now an expert on pushing the boundaries just enough to annoy everyone.
Perhaps I am simply being petty, caring about material things such as uniform. Who cares about clothes enough to really rebel for them? I certainly have never felt that strongly that clothes convey one’s personality. Nevertheless, they are, in some ways, symbolic. It doesn’t matter at all whether material things resemble one’s soul, the point is that the thing becomes one of the attributes of the self. It’s always interesting to try to imagine what the teachers who ask me not to break the rules think my motives are. Perhaps they imagine I am a crazed anarchist who is utilising the imagology of creative clothing to convey my ultimate meaning of creative ideology. I’m sure the worry keeps them up at night. They’re wrong, though. Just like if you think that Kundera is trying to press a message through the beautiful writing in his books you’d be wrong.
But this article does have a message. Around me, the good burghers of this magazine are erupting with displeasure at the censorship which is, yet again, being displayed towards our paper. As usual, the writers have put their heart and soul into a beautiful article, perhaps mildly full of assumptions, and they are beaten into the dust of censorship, bemoaning the prospects of this magazine for getting anywhere, ever. The words of hope and courage with which the new editors greeted the magazine are being rapidly forgotten. But, like the issue over uniform, this is old news. We, the people of Canford, are told to grow up and realise that freedom of speech is not a reality when you’re not an adult. Oh wait, we are.
Sunday 9 May 2010
Bluebells where I am blueberries
I made pancakes this morning. I made about twice as many as anyone possibly wanted so there’s loads left, I think I may be living on their coagulated remains for the rest of the week. If anyone wants those really thin pancakes, not the good old American kind, then mine is the place to be.
There are some things which always happen, annually, in my life. One of them is getting worked up about bluebells, going too early, and then forgetting to go when they finally get really going, until suddenly they’re almost gone, and it smells of heated, crushed plants. My friend’s mother hates the smell of cut plants, can’t abide having Christmas trees around because she’s convinced it’s the smell of death. Or something like that. I think bluebells are beautiful, all those field of lilac, there’s something narcotic about woods full of bluebells.
And at the end of this week I’m going to a party which in my mind is linked to this dreamlike quality of the bluebells. That kind of haze of beauty, mixed with some childhood memories. Bluebells have so many associations for me. We did a project on them in class when I went to an all girls school called St Catherine’s, up in Guildford. The school was horrible, and although I still visited a few of the friends I made there a few years on, I’m almost out of contact with them all now. I remember us all trying to poison each other, fights and hatred and bullying all out of proportion with our eight or nine year oldness. Some prime suffering years right there.
But anyway, we did this project on bluebells. I still have the watercolour I did, here on the wall in the study. It’s really detailed, almost sadly so. Nowadays if you gave me watercolours and beautiful thick paper like that and told me to draw a bluebell you’d end up with a thousand images all energetically thrown down, none with that level of concentration.
So I guess I’ve found someone who I talk at too much and they don’t actually want to strangle me immediately. I always find it wholesome to not have to say anything and yet to say too much, although I might need to stop doing that.
There are some things which always happen, annually, in my life. One of them is getting worked up about bluebells, going too early, and then forgetting to go when they finally get really going, until suddenly they’re almost gone, and it smells of heated, crushed plants. My friend’s mother hates the smell of cut plants, can’t abide having Christmas trees around because she’s convinced it’s the smell of death. Or something like that. I think bluebells are beautiful, all those field of lilac, there’s something narcotic about woods full of bluebells.
And at the end of this week I’m going to a party which in my mind is linked to this dreamlike quality of the bluebells. That kind of haze of beauty, mixed with some childhood memories. Bluebells have so many associations for me. We did a project on them in class when I went to an all girls school called St Catherine’s, up in Guildford. The school was horrible, and although I still visited a few of the friends I made there a few years on, I’m almost out of contact with them all now. I remember us all trying to poison each other, fights and hatred and bullying all out of proportion with our eight or nine year oldness. Some prime suffering years right there.
But anyway, we did this project on bluebells. I still have the watercolour I did, here on the wall in the study. It’s really detailed, almost sadly so. Nowadays if you gave me watercolours and beautiful thick paper like that and told me to draw a bluebell you’d end up with a thousand images all energetically thrown down, none with that level of concentration.
So I guess I’ve found someone who I talk at too much and they don’t actually want to strangle me immediately. I always find it wholesome to not have to say anything and yet to say too much, although I might need to stop doing that.
Thursday 6 May 2010
mind implosion
We don't look like pages from a magazine.
But that’s probably okay.
Perception. Projection. Damn.
But that’s probably okay.
Perception. Projection. Damn.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
apples and letters and elections.
I’m writing letters to people without the intention of ever posting them. They’ll probably get to read them though, because I can’t keep things to myself. The other day in Dead Goat Society (creative writing thing – I made up the name and normally am in charge but on Tuesday someone else took it) they asked us to write down three things about us that no one else there would know. In fact, only one of them had to be true. But I couldn’t think of anything for either the true or false ones because I talk too much and everyone there already knew everything about me.
Thing is, I like posting letters. Sliding the thick folded ink covered sheets into the envelope. The quick taste of the envelope (does anyone else worry about paper cutting their tongue when they lick it closed?), and the slightly different taste of the adhesive they put on the stamps, and making a mistake writing down the address, and then agonising over whether it will suffice anyway. Putting on wellys. Walking down a green and grey road with too-narrow sidewalks to get to the shiny red post box, with the lights from the cars sweeping by and making it gleam.
I don’t know why this description is happening in my head in a kind of twilight time, or like when it’s so overcast and almost night time that it’s all grey and there’s a slight drizzle and all I want to do is not let the letter get wet and then stomp home and think about roasting marshmallows or drinking hot chocolate.
What foods constitute comfort foods? Is it okay that practically anything good does for me? I mean, if I’m down, a really good pear is in some ways better than hot chocolate. Because hot chocolate will leave me feeling like I would like another sweet thing, whereas with a pear you know that if you’re still hungry, it won’t be for unhealthyness. I know where I am with a pear. In fact, I adore pears. We don’t have any ripe ones just now and it’s breaking my heart. I once told a bunch of friends that apples are only what pears do in their free time. They laughed.
Apples are associated for me with when I was about thirteen. I had two friends who called me the big apple because I would have an apple at break, and then an apple at lunch, and then steal an apple after lunch to eat whilst wondering around. I was such a rebel with my apple stealing. Not even off trees, just out of the baskets at lunch. You were only supposed to take one though, I think. And I have a vague recollection that most of the apples I ate at break were stolen from the school too. Maybe that’s why people picture apples as being what Eve ate. Because they’re just so stealable.
The other reason they called me the big apple was because I’m half American. Speaking of which, I’m voting in these UK elections now. But I can still vote in the states whenever they next have an election. I can’t wait. And when I go live there for a year as part of university, I’ll presumably get to vote on stuff in the state I’m living in. That will probably get old really quickly but still, it’s like I’ll actually be influencing stuff. In two countries. I am all powerful.
Thing is, I like posting letters. Sliding the thick folded ink covered sheets into the envelope. The quick taste of the envelope (does anyone else worry about paper cutting their tongue when they lick it closed?), and the slightly different taste of the adhesive they put on the stamps, and making a mistake writing down the address, and then agonising over whether it will suffice anyway. Putting on wellys. Walking down a green and grey road with too-narrow sidewalks to get to the shiny red post box, with the lights from the cars sweeping by and making it gleam.
I don’t know why this description is happening in my head in a kind of twilight time, or like when it’s so overcast and almost night time that it’s all grey and there’s a slight drizzle and all I want to do is not let the letter get wet and then stomp home and think about roasting marshmallows or drinking hot chocolate.
What foods constitute comfort foods? Is it okay that practically anything good does for me? I mean, if I’m down, a really good pear is in some ways better than hot chocolate. Because hot chocolate will leave me feeling like I would like another sweet thing, whereas with a pear you know that if you’re still hungry, it won’t be for unhealthyness. I know where I am with a pear. In fact, I adore pears. We don’t have any ripe ones just now and it’s breaking my heart. I once told a bunch of friends that apples are only what pears do in their free time. They laughed.
Apples are associated for me with when I was about thirteen. I had two friends who called me the big apple because I would have an apple at break, and then an apple at lunch, and then steal an apple after lunch to eat whilst wondering around. I was such a rebel with my apple stealing. Not even off trees, just out of the baskets at lunch. You were only supposed to take one though, I think. And I have a vague recollection that most of the apples I ate at break were stolen from the school too. Maybe that’s why people picture apples as being what Eve ate. Because they’re just so stealable.
The other reason they called me the big apple was because I’m half American. Speaking of which, I’m voting in these UK elections now. But I can still vote in the states whenever they next have an election. I can’t wait. And when I go live there for a year as part of university, I’ll presumably get to vote on stuff in the state I’m living in. That will probably get old really quickly but still, it’s like I’ll actually be influencing stuff. In two countries. I am all powerful.
Monday 3 May 2010
I stood unwound beneath the skies
I’m reading Milan Kundera’s Immortality. It’s translated from Czech, and I love the voice that gives it. Over the weekend some Americans, who call Virginia where they come from but live in Poland, came to stay. Eric (whose job is all about GM stuff. I mean, I don’t have a problem about this but apparently the stuff he does can be pretty controversial. You can read all about him here: http://poland.usembassy.gov/poland/agric/eric-a.-wenbergs-biography), the dad, and his two girls, Dakota and Tarren (not sure on the spelling of their names). Eric mentioned that Czechs often have quite a dry sense of humour, which fits into how this book reads. The mom of the family had to stay in Poland because she’s in charge of loads of USA stuff there. As in, she’s kind of important. I’m just glad she wasn’t on that plane, but Eric, who also works for the USA there, mentioned that a good friend of his lost fifteen friends on it.
Fifteen friends in one go. Destroyed, in one swoop.
I may be destroying someone. That someone could well be me. Or it could be you.
I’m not entirely sure if this is a problem or not. Because I have that feeling so often and it’s kind of necessary to my existence. Or it might not be. I don’t know why there’s a bottle of champagne blocking my view of the computer screen. Or why I’m consumed with jealousy over the geography teacher who lives next door and is blonde and has a gorgeous husband. Or why I can’t write blonde characters. I haven’t written a character as being blonde and realistic since year eight. Maybe I write too much. Or too little.
I want someone to read Goethe to me in German.
‘The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.’ That’s what Kundera says about Goethe. I guess that’s what I look for in life, moments like that. I remember whilst clubbing once a photographer took a picture of my friend and I, and I brought it off her, telling my friend that ‘that was one moment I wouldn’t mind remembering’. It was an awesome night. Kind of innocent, if that’s possible whilst clubbing in Bournemouth.
I went and sat out on the ledge today, which is a metal sheet which sticks out below my window. As the wall behind it is black it gets pretty hot when the sun shines. It had only just stopped raining but the water was almost all evaporated as the sun was shining. It smelt fresh and clean but didn’t look it.
I thought about how mentholated cigarettes are depraved.
I thought about how I won’t know what to say.
Which leads me neatly into the song of today, Ani Difranco’s ‘untouchable face’ or, as my ipod calls it, ‘fuck you’. The lyrics are perfect for the music.
‘think i'm going for a walk now
i feel a little unsteady
i don't want nobody to follow me
'cept maybe you
i could make you happy you know
if you weren't already
i could do a lot of things
and i do’
and then this bit:
‘you'll look like a photograph of yourself
taken from far far away
and i won't know what to do
and i won't know what to say’
I’ve felt like that so many times. And also her song, ‘Gravel’ would be another to be utterly recommended. Ani Difranco’s so angry and yet so loving at the same time. I mean, such pitches of emotion – I guess that’s where most of my creativity comes from, when I do one of those explosions of self across my little black moleskine book, that’s what these remind me of. Except these ring more true, they’re kind of simpler, not caught up in the multiple echoes of the rest of my life which mean I can’t feel one thing at a time any more. I guess that’s why I like her. I don’t really feel like either of these songs though. They’re just ones which seem like they ought to fit into my life.
What I actually feel like is Bob Dylan. I hadn’t felt like him for a while, I guess it’s because I’ve actually had almost three days not being surrounded by school and totally skiving all work, and my mind has finally relapsed into its proper shape, into which some good old Bob fits perfectly.
So I’m now listening to ‘Can’t help falling in love’, and next up is ‘You ain’t going nowhere’. Lovely bit of harmonica, and lyrics which make me swoon. My favourite Bob lyrics right now are the ‘Lay down your weary tune’ ones, the purity of description and so on and so forth is amazing. I guess there comes a time when I can only turn my face to the wall and blank out the world with some plinky plonky guitar.
I will leave you with these images:
‘I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws
The cryin’ rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause
Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum
The last of leaves fell from the trees
And clung to a new love’s breast
The branches bare like a banjo played
To the winds that listened best
I gazed down in the river’s mirror
And watched its winding strum
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum’
Fifteen friends in one go. Destroyed, in one swoop.
I may be destroying someone. That someone could well be me. Or it could be you.
I’m not entirely sure if this is a problem or not. Because I have that feeling so often and it’s kind of necessary to my existence. Or it might not be. I don’t know why there’s a bottle of champagne blocking my view of the computer screen. Or why I’m consumed with jealousy over the geography teacher who lives next door and is blonde and has a gorgeous husband. Or why I can’t write blonde characters. I haven’t written a character as being blonde and realistic since year eight. Maybe I write too much. Or too little.
I want someone to read Goethe to me in German.
‘The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.’ That’s what Kundera says about Goethe. I guess that’s what I look for in life, moments like that. I remember whilst clubbing once a photographer took a picture of my friend and I, and I brought it off her, telling my friend that ‘that was one moment I wouldn’t mind remembering’. It was an awesome night. Kind of innocent, if that’s possible whilst clubbing in Bournemouth.
I went and sat out on the ledge today, which is a metal sheet which sticks out below my window. As the wall behind it is black it gets pretty hot when the sun shines. It had only just stopped raining but the water was almost all evaporated as the sun was shining. It smelt fresh and clean but didn’t look it.
I thought about how mentholated cigarettes are depraved.
I thought about how I won’t know what to say.
Which leads me neatly into the song of today, Ani Difranco’s ‘untouchable face’ or, as my ipod calls it, ‘fuck you’. The lyrics are perfect for the music.
‘think i'm going for a walk now
i feel a little unsteady
i don't want nobody to follow me
'cept maybe you
i could make you happy you know
if you weren't already
i could do a lot of things
and i do’
and then this bit:
‘you'll look like a photograph of yourself
taken from far far away
and i won't know what to do
and i won't know what to say’
I’ve felt like that so many times. And also her song, ‘Gravel’ would be another to be utterly recommended. Ani Difranco’s so angry and yet so loving at the same time. I mean, such pitches of emotion – I guess that’s where most of my creativity comes from, when I do one of those explosions of self across my little black moleskine book, that’s what these remind me of. Except these ring more true, they’re kind of simpler, not caught up in the multiple echoes of the rest of my life which mean I can’t feel one thing at a time any more. I guess that’s why I like her. I don’t really feel like either of these songs though. They’re just ones which seem like they ought to fit into my life.
What I actually feel like is Bob Dylan. I hadn’t felt like him for a while, I guess it’s because I’ve actually had almost three days not being surrounded by school and totally skiving all work, and my mind has finally relapsed into its proper shape, into which some good old Bob fits perfectly.
So I’m now listening to ‘Can’t help falling in love’, and next up is ‘You ain’t going nowhere’. Lovely bit of harmonica, and lyrics which make me swoon. My favourite Bob lyrics right now are the ‘Lay down your weary tune’ ones, the purity of description and so on and so forth is amazing. I guess there comes a time when I can only turn my face to the wall and blank out the world with some plinky plonky guitar.
I will leave you with these images:
‘I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws
The cryin’ rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause
Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum
The last of leaves fell from the trees
And clung to a new love’s breast
The branches bare like a banjo played
To the winds that listened best
I gazed down in the river’s mirror
And watched its winding strum
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum’
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