... on a Magic Swirling Ship

More weird dreaming yesterday except as usual everything in the dream was mundane , like being in people houses , going for a drink in a small field , being in Oswestry (Oswestry? I don't think I've ever been or ever need to go , not that I have anything against Oswestry). Dreams can be boring at times.

Today I went to get a bit of shopping and now I have a painful shoulder / chest. I did have t take off my rucksack part of the way back, but at a quick estimate the weight of the shopping was about 15Kg which I carried for around two miles. It's amazing how bottles of milk , water and Prosecco do carry some weight.

Anyway this is a short post mainly inspired by the title line that came into my mind. I have been listening to Bob Dylan's "Biograph" this week and I first heard the line when The Byrds played it on "Thank Your Lucky Stars", and that hooked me. When I first heard the Bob Dylan version I was less impressed thanking he couldn't sing or play. I persevered and Dylan's delivery grew on me. The early stiuff sounded rough but the words took you into magic.

Lot's of people still don't rate Dylan, but like Terry Pratchett his sales must be a huge comfort to him. I only ever liked "Mort" by Terry Pratchett , but that's just me , and people tell me that I am missing so much. I did enjoy the TV adaptations and am similar about Stephen King , find most of his books a grind but TV and film adaptations are great and I think the guy is great.

The "Magic Swirling Ship" is a great analogy for our dreams and the places books and music take us and for me that is just a brilliant image. In itself it's meaningless, but let your mind loose on it and it can be anything you want.

Do It Again - #FruitfulSeptember #6

 The first two days of this week I didn't actually go out for a walk , and on Tuesday I virtually didn't leave the house. I know in lockdown that people have said they haven't left their homes , but unless you have a health problem or live in a tower block or very narrow streets there should be no reason not to go out. The thing is with COVID19 is that we still don't know exactly how it's spread and don't have a vaccine so it's basically a question of attempting to keep yourself safe and not spread it to others as you might be a carrier. I don't know that I'm not a carrier so I mask up when in close proximity to someone I don't know.

So the last two days I have gone for longish walks , meeting the cattle on Nunsmoor, and doing that that starts your day making you feel that you have accomplished something and therefore carries over into what you are doing that day. It's always good to feel you have accomplished something even if it is something relatively small. Today I have only walked three miles but it has been a good start.

Music helps while walking and this morning I listened to "For You Pleasure" by Roxy Music , possibly their finest album though definitely not their most commercial , going almost Brechtian on "The Bogus Man" one of my highlights and the direction Brian Eno wanted the band to pursue but as he said , it was Bryan Ferry's band.

Working from home I am working through my CD box sets , and currently listening to "There is a Season" by The Byrds which contains nearly a hundred songs. Yesterday it was "Retro" by New Order and "The Thrill Of It All" by Roxy Music will probably hit next week. This is a major plus working from home , I have listened to a hell of a lot of music which I maybe wouldn't have had chance to working in the office.

So to continue #FruitfulSeptember we'll go with a live take of "Peach" by Prince as we recently featured "Raspberry Beret" , one of his songs , performed by The Hindu Love Gods.

Going Back

The older you get , the more stuff you have to revisit. Sometimes this works out and sometimes it doesn't. It happens with places, books , people , films and music. But you always have to try to see if it was as good as you think you remembered it.

The obvious song is the Byrd's cover of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Goin' Back" , and the Byrd's always made songs sound as though they were drenched in perfection. I first saw them performing Bob Dylan's "Mr  Tambourine Man" on Thank Your Lucky Stars around 1965 and loved it , but was shocked by how rough the original sounded. The thing is I eventually came to love Dylan's voice as well and sometimes found The Byrd's covers a little too perfect, as with "Positively Fourth Street" on "Untitled", but it's still good.

Back to what I was originally going to post, I had started to reread "Weaveworld" by Clive Barker. Part of it brings back memories of my time in Liverpool , but two hundred pages in I think that it's as good as when I first got into iit. My memory has always been rubbish (it's why I had difficulty with English Literature  and Law, I could remember what things were about and describe them but couldn't remember quotes and cases) so things keep popping up in the book that I had forgotten such as The Rake and even Suzanna, though I remembered Cal, the pigeons , Shadwell , The Scourge and of course The Magic Carpet.

"Weaveworld" still has the magic for me and I am looking forward to enjoying the bits I remember and the bits I've forgotten.