... 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.

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

I had a dream in which a lot happened last night but the only specific thing was me chucking a pint of water over Donald Trump who was sat in a sink. I don't know if it's related to the fact that there are some tea spoons being bleached in a pint glass by the sink down stairs or what, but the dream involved country roads , cottages , buses and the aforementioned incident.

This is my sixtieth post this year , so that is averaging fifteen posts a month , although there is a lot of April to go so I am expecting maybe two hundred posts this year.

This week has seen me listening to a lot of music and realising that I have ten copies of  "Tommy" by The Who in one form or another and the Ken Russell film sort of set a blueprint for decent pop videos with Elton John's "Pinball Wizard" and Tina Turner's "Acid Queen".

I have the original , orchestral and film soundtrack but all my live Who CDs have a live take of  "Tommy" included , including "Who's Next". So it's gotta be Tina Turner's "Acid Queen" to play out with.

So Lazaretto

This weekend I have listened to Jack White's "Lazaretto" on CD and the "Ultra" vinyl version. Side one of the "Ultra" vinyl version is a strange and unusual experience. I think I bought it because it was the first laser etched hologram on the runout groove of a vinyl LP , but I also like Jack White and had heard some songs from the LP.

I have the CD as well whicjh means I can listen and enjoy , but the vinyl album doesn't even play in the normal direction , no matter where you drop the needle , it finds it's way to a closed groove at the start of the record.

The angelic holograms are quite amazing , just because they are. You can't get your head round that these are made of light shining on some black spinning vinyl. I was thinking of doing a YouTube video but my Instagram Post is enough. The hologram was designed by Tristan Duke of Infinity Light Science. He also did the Star Wars Holograms as well. You can check out all the videos and the web site.

Watch the video and be impressed.

Easter Coincidence

It's Easter Sunday and I 'have just started rereading "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson, which I have happily dived into and one of the characters in it is called Oster which I believe is modern Dutch for Easter and I am sure my friend Bas will confirm it or correct me.

There is a lot about the origins of Easter here  essentially in English-speaking countries, and in Germany, Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.

Ostara (1901) by Johannes Gehrts.
.Spring feasts were held to honour
the Anglo-Saxon goddess
Eostre/Ostara

"Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that's why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox,"
according to University of Sydney Professor Carole Cusack

In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara.

I always find it odd that the Christian celebration of something so important to them ia avery moveable feast , while stuff like Christmas is actually fixed.

So I wasn't really going to write anything today but I think Mott The Hoople's "Roll Away The Stone" is sort of appropriate, don't you.

Finishing The Outsider

I have finished "The Outsider" and while , for me, it's hardly an "essential" novel, despite being so short it leaves to with a lot of questions. This is mainly because of the barebones format of describing the experiences of the main protagonist. While part one leads up to the murder, and part two deals with the aftermath , it seems he is actually condemned for not crying when his mother died rather than the actual murder, and although he is condemned you don't know whether there is an appeal. There is an afterword by the author explaining why the protagonist does what he does, but you end up with a lot of questions.

That is no bad thing because you then use your mind to try and figure out why things went the way they did. Too often we expect everything to be laid out on a plate, and that's what we get from most books, but this is different. I suppose "Steppenwolf" also left a lot of unanswered questions but that is a positive aspect for this sort of book.

Next up I am going to revisit "The Adversary" series starting with "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson , which was turned into a film by Michael Mann , but just fell into the basic horror box when the actual series is a lot more than that, although it's purely descriptive unlike the recent volumes I've read.

So moving from the worthy almost philosophical volumes to  what academics may see as unworthy horror, but enjoyable. As I write this I am listening to the excellent "Lazaretto" by Jack White and there seems to be a perfect song on there, "I Think I Found The Culprit". 

The vinyl copy of the album is unfeasibly so clever it makes it almost impossible to listen to, so I go for the CD, 

The vinyl copy also contains the first 3D hologram of an angel in the runout groove which yo can see above. I still can't believe that someone actually thought of that , and then actually did it , and it worked.

Reading The Outsider

 I haven't quite finished "The Outsider" and to me it is like something  that would be a set school text. Although the second part of it has taken a very unexpected turn, so I am still turning the pages and not sure exactly where it's going. I am glad I kept with it although I can't agree with JG Ballard's verdict on it though I would not dissuade anyone from picking it up and reading it.

I have finished the excellent "Apparitions" on Amazon Prime and am just surprised it didn't continue, but it then took me into "Harry Price: Ghost Hunter"  which also look excellent and in a vaguely similar vein, so that will be something else for me to watch.

April has not been a good start on the steps front as after two days  I am 5K steps down , that's about two miles, though having said that I did do 20K steps on the last day of March which was about 8.5 miles.

Given the things I've gone over in this post "The Words That Maketh Murder" by Polly Jean Harvey seems a pretty appropriate song.

April Fooled

It's the first of  April , the day before the Bank Holiday and the start of a new Financial Year, and it's been a busy day but maybe time for a lie in tomorrow.

I'm two thirds of the way through "The Outsider" by Albert Camus and am yet to see why JG Ballard thought it was such a great novel, it has forty pages to prove me wrong. It is readable and while it's not exactly predictable there is very little mystery , things happen in a linear narrative Part One dealing with the lead up to the murder and Part Two with the aftermath.

I've been sifting through my CDs today and rediscovered Tonto's Expanding Headband who consisted of  Malcolm Cecil  and Robert Margouleff . TONTO was an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra" and their work was similar to what Wendy Carlos was doing with classical music on the Moog.

I was recently playing "3+3" by The Isley Brothers and Cecil and Margouleff were producers on that album too.

From The Perspective of an Outsider

 "Always on the outside,

Of Whatever side there was"

Is a line from Bob Dylan's "Joey" from "Desire" which has always applied to me, and I have just finished the 116 page "taraNtula" and starter "The Outsider" by Albert Camus described by JG Ballard , my favourite author , as one of the most important novels of the twentieth century "A beach murder....blood and sand" so I obviously cant resist that, and this clocks in at 118 pages and I will finish it before Goof Friday is out even though I am a slow reader. 

"The Outsider" is a far easier read that "taraNtula" because it follows a normal narrative rather than teh stream of consciousness outpouring of the Dylan novel, which although short has still taken me the best part of a week to finish. I enjoyed it, as it is anything but a normal reading experience.

"The Outsider" is moving along nicely and is a convenient point on the way to my next book, but is going along nicely and will see it it makes me want to read anything more by Mr Camus.

Today I went for a walk with my daughter Kirsty and granddaughter Alexis and on the way to the town moor I noticed the perspective of buildings that seemed to move from left to right as I walked forward in an apparently straight line. These included the Civic Centre , the RVI, St James' Park and the Freeman Hospital. It's all perfectly natural but still a little disconcerting.

While it's only a small thing it does give me an excuse to share "Perspective" by Peter Gabriel from the "Scratch" album , his second solo outing

The Loquacious Calvinist

I haven't a clue why that phrase was in my mind on this last day of March , the last day of the financial year , on this sunny morning. It is probably that the last two things that I have picked up to watch have religious overtones.

"Apostle" on Netflix featured Dan Stevens and Michael Sheen and is a very claustrophobic kidnap tale based at an isolated Highland Island community  reminiscent of "The Wicker Man". It also disturbing and in parts gory and in my opinion spoilt by the vague mystical / science fiction unexplanations of what is going on. Reminding me of the finale of "Night of the Demon" a great , worrying horror film , spoilt by the studio insisting on the appearance of a rubbish monster at the end. I can't find any way of watching it except on Netflix but here is the IMDB link.

"Apparitions" is a six episode BBC series from 2008 that I found on Amazon Prime, from an idea by Martin Shaw and features him as an exorcist , so comparisons with the film there, but it's extremely good and certainly blurs the lines between good and evil including potential possession of a serial rapist by a saint and a lot of police involvement. Again there is a high gore content and don't get too attached to anyone but I am finding it gripping and Martin Shaw is always watchable and the appearance of Neil Pearson and a Prison governor is also a plus, but I always think he's not totally serious because of the "Drop The Dead Donkey" connection.  You can always find fault with anything, byt this is a fr=great series.

This morning I link I have lost a contact lens in my left eye, I can feel it there as I write, so I have to just wait until it works it's way round to the front and then I can see properly. It is annoying typing with one eye blurred but this is only the second time in twenty years of soft contact lens wearing that this has happened , so nothing major.

When I started this I pulled out a random cd "Triologie" a best of Trio. I believe that "Da Da Da" was made as a bet with their students and became a worldwide hit, so I am going to share this minimalist anthem with you. The Wiki page is here.

"Trio was part of the Neue Deutsche Welle (or NDW); however, the band preferred the name "Neue Deutsche Fröhlichkeit", which means "New German Cheerfulness", to describe their music."

The Weight

I was quite surprised when I converted my weight from kilograms to stones and pounds,  My weight is not really going down although I am hardly ballooning, but I remember being close to twenty stone and always feel that's roughly where I am. Sometime it the last two years I dropped below a hundred Kg which was a big landmark for me and have been trying (not very hard) to get below 95Kg.

Although I am diabetic , I love chocolate and sweet stuff although as I get older certain things I used to find irresistible now don't hold as much attraction for me , such as fried breakfasts and most meat although I am still OK with fish.

Anyway this morning I weighed 94.6 Kg and when I converted it to stones and lbs it came out as 14 stone 13 lb which is a lot less that the twenty stone that I think of myself as. The 209lb still seems a lot to me and I have to get under 200lb / 90Kg , just to do it which meats losing another five Kg or ten lb. When I got hit by 'flu' or COVID about fifteen months ago I dropped to 92Kg but then put it on when I got better.

Given what I've already lost I don't see the 90Kg as impossible , and it's not all that far away. 

So I know this is a short post on a sunny Tuesday morning, and the obvious song is "The Weight" by The Band. Incidentally it was included in the film of "Easy Rider" but due to contractual wrangles the version on the soundtrack album was replaced by a version by the band Smith, who I have never heard of before or since. The scene from "Easy Rider" is on Youtube, and beautiful thee minutes of roadtrp thru The NAVAJO NATION (US 89 North to US 160 East to KAYENTA,then US 163 to MONUMENT VALLEY,AZ/UT) feturing Peter Fonda , Dennis hopper and I think Hack Nicholson riding pillion

Did Anything Happen To Music .. or Did I Miss It?

There are usually times in history when musical scenes reboot themselves, probably starting in the nineteen twenties when recorded music became a thing and we had early jazz , blues and crooners making the way into the public consciousness via vinyl and radio. Gramophones and radios were commercially available and spread to sound through the populace especially in the USA and UK.

Six years ago I published a personal history of musical media from the wax cylinder to today's digital streaming here.

After the war we had crooners , Jazz , Western Swing and the beginnings of Country and Western. Rock and Roll was the first big flash propelled by Bill Haley & The Comets "Rock Around The Clock" the film "The Blackboard Jungle" and the genesis of the teenager as someone who could buy things including music, plus the tribalism of Teddy Boys and the like.

In the sixties there were Mods and Rockers, Skinheads psychedelia , ska and reggae , garage rock but this was just a quite smooth progression , resulting in some major rock bands and an unfeasioble amount of money and pretension. In the seventies we also go glam and all along the mainstream kept morst of the public satisfied as it still does today.

Then punk hit , hating the establishment , and prog rock (but ironically loving Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk") but still referring and eulogising krautock , reggae , sixties garage rock and more, while pursuing a minimalist shoestring sound epitomised by The Buzzcocks "Spiral Scratch" , which is why I was so disappointed by The Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" as to me it was a heavy metal album, so sounded good but more metal than punk.

This resulted in lots of small independent music which was eventually absorbed by the big labels. 

And since the during the eighties we saw Goth , and Grunge and Baggy at the start of the nineties, and while there is always good music coming through there's been no big band since the mid seventies and no small bang since the early nineties.

So did I miss something or did I just get old? Franks Zappa said that when the old guys were in charge of record labels they would always give anything a shot. Could you imagine a major label releasing "Trout Mask Replica" or even "The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads" today?  Sing the young guys moved in it's all about product and markets , not art and music.

So what should I share, I'll go with the Bill Haley song.

On Comedy

Just a few Sunday Morning thoughts on the nature of comedy. One of the problems I sort of see for a comedian is that once a joke is told it's out there, it's done, so sometimes you will see the great comedians who actually tell stories, to which there may or may not be a punchline , but the journey provides the fun.

I am lucky enough to be casually acquainted with some truly great comedians John Scott , Gavin Webster , Louise Young , Rahul Kohli and Simon Donald.

All these people can talk , but obviously put a lot of work into what they say and I have seen and chatted with all of them at The Stand and various places in Newcastle.

Sometimes comedy can only work as the written word such as the Jerry Saltz one which you can see to the right. I've tried verbalising this and it just doesn't work , and the really good thing about this is that it makes your mind think. 

When a comedian is live they have to keep this up all the way through , otherwise they die on stage.

But on writing this I am thinking that once you hear a joke then that's it , but it isn't. A good comedian you can watch tell the same jokes over and over , but really the jokes and one liners provide a framework for the act to be delivered.

Though not the same it's like going to see a band who's songs you like. They will play the same songs but maybe in a different order, embellish the style or strip it down to give you a different experience.

With TV Comedy I can watch "Black Books" , "Father Ted" and "The IT Crowd" over and over, "Fawlty Towers" I find more difficult but it is still dunny and always loved the rearrangement to to hotel name at the start of each episode. Again it's a pleasure for me and the characters being total enjoyment.

So while I could take an excerpt from a TV show or one of the acts I listed, I will just link through and their names and share the wonderful "Comedy" by Shack with you , because it is a great song.

The Steppenwolf Coincidence

This has nothing to do with "Steppenwolf" as such (I am half way through "taraNtula" by Bob Dylan) , but I had recorded "Batman vs Superman" and "Justice League"  (although I and many still say "taped") and started "Batman vs Superman" and then thought is was not very good (I have a TIVO). I deleted it after ten minutes then realised that "Justice League" was the follow up, so recovered and started watching it.

Batman and Superman are not exactly paragons of virtue but Jeremy Irons as Alfred is worth the price of admission (many of his statements based on "Oh you screwed up again , so I will sort it out") , it turned out that it was more that watchable and I enjoyed it.

So don to the point of the post , in "Justice League" the main baddie is the Golden Steppenwolf , though he didn't look very wolf like and is just a standard devil figure intent on bringing the world to heel and into darkness based on some cod religious mythological configuration , and this reminds me of the text of "The Pentateuch of The Cosmogony" by Patrick Woodroffe  (art and text) and Dave Greenslade (music) . 

I enjoyed "Justice League" even more than "Batman vs Superman" and it comes out that Batman is really past it and the Justice League ends up consisting of Batman , Wonder Woman, The Flash , Cyborg , Aquaman and eventually Superman. Next up is "Aquaman" for me because it is available on Amazon Prime.

One of my favourite lines (and there are lots of those) is when Aquaman asks Batman "What's Your Super Power?", Batman answers "I'm Rich".

Growing up I loved Greek, Norse and Irish mythology as well as moving further afield and these have provided fertile fields for a lot of the DC and Marvel Universes, the most obvious being Thor and Wonder Woman's origins.

I wasn't sure what music to share , but given the Justice League scenario we will go for "End of the World" by Andy Mackay from his debut solo album "In Search of Eddie Riff".

SteppenwolfRed , taraNtula and Soused

"Steppenwolf" is finished with the surreal Magic Theatre sequence in which Harry murders his true love who is actually a figment of the drug addled saxophone player's imagination who transforms her into a doll and pockets her. Was she real or not? A weirdly impressive book by Hermann Hesse. 

I am now revisiting "taraNtula" by Bob Dylan , yes the spelling is correct and the stream of consciousness approach and dialogue actually seems to naturally follow on from the end of "Steppenwolf" and has given me an idea for a book or at least a long piece of my own. While Dylan had his position as an established artist to attract an audience it may be that barring an unexpected twist of fortune mine will remain unread and it will probably not be an easy read but hopefully , like "Steppenwolf" there might be tempting breadcrumbs in there for readers.

As I write this I am listening to "Soused" by Scott Walker and Sunn O))) one of the most incredible sounding experiences I have ever heard. Scott Walker is a true total artist and Sunn O))) are premier noise drone purveyors and together they take you somewhere you have never been before and will never go again although you always have the option to revisit.

So I will share, once again the opener from "Soused" "Brando" with the video directed by Gisèle Vienne , and I do think these three pieces of art go together without necessarily complementing each other. I've included the Scott Walker documentary "30th Century Man" by Stephen Kijak below which is worth a watch. I've done it a few times, very impressive and informative.

SteppenwolfTwist

 I had my COVID injection yesterday and it physically knocked me with a lot of the symptoms but I think I am now over the worst.

"Steppenwolf" has taken a major unexpected twist, in a drug, drink and sex induced surreal scenario Harry Haller takes a step into a man vs machine world scenario worthy of JG Ballard. I really didn't see that coming , and with about twenty pages left of the book I am not sure what else will happen. If I'd known the format of the book , two breaks in the first fifty pages then two hundred pages of non stop narrative, I think I may have been put off, and it's not for everyone but I am glad I have read and got through it.

I have also decided to revisit "Tarantula" by Bob Dylan next before maybe dipping into another unread (by me) classic.

So as I am still not 100% , I am going to go left field and share "Shadow Line" by Jordan Reyne because it is the song that hooked me on her and the video is wonderful as is the song.

Last Night I Dreamt ....

 ... but don't remember anything. I obviously slept well though was woken by traffic around 5AM and then the alarm at 5:46AM . I watched the last episode of the current series of "American Gods" and thought it was coming to a tidy close, but how wrong I was about that.

I keep wanting to write a one word post , but I am not sure what that word would be, although doubt there would be a reaction as people would look at it and then go on to the next thing that might actually catch their interest.

I'm not sure if there is a problem with my Google Pixel 2XL phone as a few apps have suddenly stopped working. It's odd because they open then just disappear , had a similar problem with an app on my work computer recently. The thing is it's stuff like GMail , Words With Friends (which seems memory intensive anyway) and IMDB , however other apps seem fine. I've run the virus checker and nothing comes up so may be a case of uninstalling and reinstalling , which is fine for a single app but annoying for multiple apps.

On my walk for the COVID test all of a sudden all the non working apps started working , so all looks good,

Today is my first COVID jab so will be walking out soon to the Centre For Life to get mine. It's a greyish day but should be a good walk into town. The walk was pleasant and the lady who dealt with me was a dentist from Fenham , told her the story of how I got my name which she thought was hilarious , and when I told her who I worked for she said "Well That's a conversation stopper" , cue more guffaws from both of us.

So my first #MusicWhileYouWork disc when I get in will be Gerry Rafferty's "City To City" so that should appear on my Instagram Channel and as I write this the sun has started really shining , so all is looking good.

Strange Dream Fragments and Instagram Problems

I dreamt last night and just remember fragments , a deep water harbour (there was a reason for this but it's gone) , an Excel Worksheet with an eight by four table based on the naked male wrestling match between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russel's take on "Women In Love" by DH Lawrence (yeah work that one out)  and wooden buildings akin to the northern towns in "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman. Obviously "Steppenwolf" is also somewhere in there as well . That's a lot of references for something that I don't actually remember anything about, but so often that's the thing about dreams, generally they don't make sense, they happen just before you wake up , and soon you forget about them . I sometimes write about them.

The other thing is that Instagram not won't access my camera on my phone. Instagram used to allow a one minute video , then they reduced it to 15 seconds , then video disappeared (unless you use Reels , whatever that is) , and now even taking pictures has gone, and I have to take things with a camera then add them to Instagram. An unexpected benefit is that when I share my #MusicWhileYouWork videos I now create a one minute video which I then share to Instagram. The only problem is that Instagram pics and videos need to be 4:3 and the phones. video is something like 9:16 and Instagram always then takes the bottom of the video, so I use a great piece of software called YouCut which allows me to crop and rotate and trim and lots of other things with the video , not ideal if your power is low, but it extremely impressive.

So music wise "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" by The Passions came to mind on this dreich Monday morning.

Reading Books

I am still sort of enjoying "Steppenwolf" , but one of te things about books is I prefer a font that I can read regardless of whether I have contact lenses in or not , ie a dark high contracts font that is not to tiny. Some fonts are very faint so unless you have a decent light they become difficult to read. This is where an e-reader scores because you can change the font and even get it to read the book for you. The print in "Steppenwolf" is excellent and I can read it with or without contact lenses in almost any light.

"Steppenwolf" itself despite hitting on suicide and murder pacts , being anti right wing jingoism in a society that is pro right wing jingoism , is very hopeful seeing Harry Haller reluctantly buying a gramophone , learning to dance despite his abhorrence of jazz and eventually realising that socialising and fun is actually enjoyable and something he wants to do. I have actually read over 150 pages in a week so that is quite fast for me and I am not sure whether I will go for another reread next or hit an unread classic.

Books are a wonderful way of exploring whatever you want to explore and it does amaze me the number of people who say they don't have time or can't read books. I am looking at some of my sets of books that I want to revisit including "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" and the F Paul Wilson "Adversary" series while I am still working through "Imajica" on my Kindle. I also feel I need to revisit some Dean Koontz although my problem with him is that he seemed to publish books quicker than I could read them, but he did publish one of the few novels "Dark Rivers of the Heart" that I read in one sitting, and I may be wrong , but I think that was around seven hundred pages. Another was Matt Haig's "Reason's To Stay Alive" which I gave away on a World Book Night , gave to my friend Paul Campbell the writer for his 50th birthday, but I also read on the train journey to London.

So we need a song to go with this., and what about one of my favourite Beatles songs "Paperback Writer". The B side is "Rain" another of my favourites and it makes up a perfect single. Macca's bass on "Rain" supposedly was so heavy that it made the needle jump the groove and while it is impressive my copy plays OK so I don't know if the bass has been calmed or what, and "Strawberry Fields" has just started playing and for the first time ever I've noticed the morse code snippet near the start.