I Read It In Books

I am constantly surprised at the number of people who do not not read books. They give excuses that they are too busy , they can’t concentrate and it’s easier to watch the film or TV series. I was saddened when my mother gave two sets of encyclopaedias to my brother and sister because she decided she didn’t like books. She taught me to read before I hit primary school when I was 4 , so she was well aware of how important reading was, and I am thankful for that. I also did the same for my daughters, much to the chagrin of some of their teachers.

Reading is a very useful habit and tool to have in your armoury to help you through lie. It can help you understand things , tell you how to accomplish things , although I mostly use it to go on adventures and to experience other worlds that are not my own.

As I have said people say they would rather watch a film , but that is the film makers take on that particular story and, especially since CGI became the norm, anything can be rendered on the cinema or TV screen, and that is no bad thing.

For instance “The Lord of The Rings” and “The Hobbit” films last about twelve hours altogether and people complain that Frodo or Aragorn was not how they imagined and places were not the same, but this was Peter Jackson’s take on the story, it was not Tolkien’s , or mine, or yours , it was his. 

Also despite the work that goes into making a film, the resultant film is about two hours long. Jackson managed to compress the six books of “Lord of the Rings” into three two hour films , but managed to spread the single book of “The Hobbit” over the same amount of film, therefore trimming a lot less from the original story. My friend Keith Mole also had a bit part in “The Hobbit” movies.

I suppose what I am working towards is saying that to enjoy a book you do need a decent imagination to be able to go where the words in the book intend to take you. There are, of course reference books and encyclopaedias that you will dip in to find facts  but I am talking about books that you will read start to finish, these are the ones that you need your imagination to be fully immersed in the experience. Maybe some people don’t , or can’t read because their imagination can work with what the book tells us.

We see lots of examples of people unable to watch a program, eat a whole meal, or listen to a song or an album from start to finish, and the thought of a book becomes a brick wall to them. Sometimes I see large books as a challenge, same with long pieces of music and long films, but I immerse myself and often find I do not want the book to end.

My favourite book is “Imajica” by Clive Barker which clocks in at around 1200 pages. I gave my paper copy to a friend and am revisiting it on my Kindle Fire, and I still love it when I drop into it and explore and experience the characters , places and events in there. As I write this I think I may get “Lord of the Rings” on my device and enjoy that in the same way. 

I am also revisiting the Adversary Cycle by F Paul Wilson which is basically six books at around 400 pages each , so the whop lot is twice the length of “Lord of The Rings”, and last rear I revisited some of the “Eternal Champion” books by Michael Moorcock which are usually trilogies or quadrilogies with each book 150-250 pages so a little shorter but still some wonderful adventures, although the only book that Moorcock wrote that resulted in a film was “The Final Program” which was “Eternal Champion” related but based on another Armageddon scenario.

The Philip Pullman series “His Dark Materials” was started as a film “The Golden Compass” but the American Christian right were against it’s anti religious sentiments so no more films were made , but HBO and the BBC came out with a stunning take on it, and although they are a TV series and have created a very believable rendition of the books for me there are many who don’t like it because it’s not their rendition.

So basically before you read a full book , prime your imagination before you take the plunge.

WordsWith Friends, Tom Waits , Repairman Jack and The Adversary Cycle

 My last few posts have been more focussed on single item although this is more about where I am at the moment.

I had been playing Scrabble on Facebook with a few friends but it became less stable to the point of often not being able to play , and so I went back to Words With Friends which I had left about eight years back due to the number of pop up adverts that stopped me from playing, or at least slowed it down.

Although it’s on Facebook and requires a Facebook login for the phone version, if I tried to play it on Facebook it did not link with what I was playing on the phone. Again there were the adverts which I discovered you could exit early , but the worst thing was how the app drained the phone battery especially if you did not close the app when you were finished. Also loading the app was very slow but I could live with it, but I checked the battery usage and it would drop significantly when I was playing the game. I have a Google Pixel 2XL. The other was people who wanted to chat, some were actually fine, but most were trying to sell me bitcoin and forex stuff despite me saying I wasn’t at all interested, then there were people demanding my email and hangouts address so they could chat (I pointed out they could chat in the app) , but it was a final nail in Words With Friends for me. I informed my two Facebook friends who I played with and removed it from my phone, and the performance and battery life have improved no end.

The main battery drainage is my sharing video on Instagram and converting it using the excellent YouCut but I am fine with that , processing does take power.

I am intending to share this on Vocal but at this point this article is only half the required length so now I am going on to what I am reading at the moment. Also as I am writing this I am listening to the excellent “Bastards” the third disc of the “Orphans” set by Tom Waits and that has been my listening yesterday and this morning after his surprisingly good collaboration with Crystal Gayle on the soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola film “One From The Heart”, although with Tom Waits the unexpected is almost always expected.

I have just gone to cast my Local Council vote and the temperature is 1 degree Centigrade , cars and roofs are iced and there is black ice on the footpaths.

So Repairman Jack. I am reading “The Tomb” , the second book in The Adversary Cycle. It bears no resemblance to “The Keep” , the first book which was based in the second World War in Romania with two supernatural opponents , Nazis and Holocaust references , and it is an excellent read although the film was less successful , but a film has a limited time span to tell the story whereas a book can last as long as you want.

This is a rereading of “The Tomb” but it’s based in the eighties , dated by Jack’s Betamax collection and the fact he can live easily off grid in New York. Jack fixes wrongs. This book flashes between the British Raj and Sepoy rebellion in 19th Century India and 1980s New York with a Religious fundamentalist and some “demons” under his control. The “demons” are trained creatures and mortal, so not necessarily supernatural.

As yet there seems to be no link with “The Keep” , in particular the Adversary Molasar/Rasalom , but I’m only 140 pages in which is just over a third through the book, so there is plenty of time yet for an appearance. This is where not having a perfect memory is a benefit, I know the books are good , I know the basic overall story but the details are missing. Also F Paul Wilson is an extremely engaging writer and knows how to reel you in, or he knows how to reel me in.

I will no doubt add more as I work through the book , but it’s just the second of six books so I have a long way to go, and I’m not sure if Jack appears in all the books. I could research but I am happy just reading and enjoying “The Tomb”.

Writing on Vocal

When I saw the ads for Vocal , I was a bit wary although my interest was piqued. It posited that you would become more disciplined with your writing and therefore be able to write better and more often and maybe even get paid for it. Anything that says you can make money is another red flag, very often the first thing that happens is that you are asked for money, then you don’t make enough to cover what you have paid out and the only people who profit are the people that you have paid.

Vocal allows you to join and post for free and receive rewards but for $10 a month you get significantly improved rewards plus extras such as free entry to paid writing competitions where you can win up to $1,000 which is fairly tempting.

I am still on the free pass seeing if I can potentially start making money from this platform.

One of the main benefits is that your pieces are exposed to the membership and you are rewarded when they read them and that in turn makes you want to write more.

This year I was intending to cut back on my blog writing , but since I joined Vocal I have posted about 15 pieces since I started on the 18th of April.

Prior to joining I would write on my blog, each post being around 250-300 words, but Vocal requires a minimum of 600 words for an article so that is something that I need to be aware of when I am writing.

This was my first ever blog post on sevendaysin.co.uk on 18th February 2007:

“Hello

This is just a start. Everyone seems to be blogging , so it’s just to set down some thoughts and observations.

 

The aim of the blog is to

1. Tell you about my website

2. Post articles on things

3. Make comments on stuff that I've seen and heard”

So that was less than fifty words and for a long time I thought that was acceptable. 

Eventually it grew and my posts were usually directly into the blogger but with Vocal I realised I needed a new discipline , which I am following as I write this.

I tried actually dictating my posts but this required so much post editing and formatting , any time I saved, was lost getting the post into an acceptable format.

Next I thought I would use Microsoft Word so I could see a word count as I typed but it seemed slow and cumbersome to create the posts. I also like to include links to relevant products and an appropriate music video , as music is probably my most indulged with hobby as you would know if you follow my Instagram or Twitter channels @mikeydred96.

As I type this I am listening to a “Best Of” Spooky Tooth. Music often makes words flow from my fingertips and certainly makes writing easier, but others may prefer quiet.

Although isolation is best for writing , you cannot be totally isolated in life otherwise it is unlikely you could write about anything.

Even if you are writing fiction you need some form of inspiration , a Muse , contact and experience. These all provide inspiration for what you are going to put on your electronic page.

We are in a far better place for creativity than ever before. I am writing this using free online software and publishing on a free platform where others can read for free. 

Even if I didn't have a home and computer I could use a local library to put this together. That probably wouldn’t have been an option even ten years ago , although to be honest we could have done it as I have been blogging since 2007.

Google Docs, which I am using to write this while listening to “I Am The Walrus” by Spooky Tooth,  has a lot of helpful tools to make your writing easier , and the document is stored online so you can find it anywhere and it has just let me know I have it 675 words which is more than I need to actually submit this for publication on Vocal.

This is another thing , I would nether have thought about writing about writing before I joined Vocal, so it has instilled a bit of discipline in me that I don’t think I had before.

So I will finish this by sharing “The Weight” written by Robbie Robertson for The Band , covered by Smith on the “Easy Rider” soundtrack album but this cover is by Spooky Tooth.

Enjoy your day

Copy Right?

This is essentially a diatribe on how copyright law is applied when you share on social media platforms such as Youtube , Facebook and Instagram . As yet I have had no issues with Twitter. The thing is I understand if the artist is not getting any benefit for my share , or I am being disrespectful, but where I can I share a link to buy the CD or digital copy.

Instagram and Facebook seem to be the worst, I was under the impression that you could share under thirsty seconds of a song , so I tend to keep the snips to 15-20 seconds although I make it up to minute long in the video sampling multiple songs. This is just like me playing a record for friends and saying “How good is this , take a listen and if you like it buy it”. I am providing the artist and therefore the record company and copyright owner with free advertising.

I don’t share the whole song , although I did in one instance recently “The Son of Noah’s Brother” by The Incredible String Band from “The Big Huge” is only seventeen seconds long. I have not had any problems with that share.

I will admit that more often than not companies are OK.. One of my most viewed Youtube videos is a slideshow featuring the artwork of Dr Faustus portraying the Nick Cave song “Red Right Hand” (the first piece of outside music used in the “X-Files” and later resurfaced in “Peaky Blinders”) in the style of Dr, Seuss.

I contacted Dr Faustus to see if he was OK using the art work but never received a reply , but I included a link in my Youtube post. I have not had a complaint from Nick Cave or his representatives and a lot of people seem to like it from the comments that I get on the post.

However in 2014 I was listening to 6Music and the DJ (which may have been Shaun Keaveny) mentioned that Christopher Lee was 90 and had been making heavy metal albums. I checked this out and was amazed to find that Christopher Lee was descended from Charlemagne , was a Nazi hunter , has appeared in more films that anyone else and much much more. Watch my slideshow to find out.

Anyway this got over 8K views on the first day and was pulled. It turns out it was Youtube and not the copyright owner , Charlemagne productions. I contacted them about it and they said they were fine with it but couldn;t do anything about what Youtube did. I was disappointed because Youtube would not reinstate it despite having the OK from Charlemagne productions.

I therefore uploaded it to my blog , which is part of the same organisation that owns Youtube and it stayed there. 

When Christopher Lee died I noticed some static copies of “My Way” on Youtube , so reloaded my Christopher Lee slideshow and this time it actually stayed up and has eventually become my most watched Youtube video. I am always wary of putting something on Youtube as often videos or slideshows take time to put together and you may publish it and then find it immediately taken down, although I do try to use more obscure music mainly with the aim of getting the music to a much wider audience.

Another thing is that often Instagram / Facebook videos are removed , sometimes years after the original post , then reinstated saying that my appeal has been successful . I never appeal because they never listen when I have appealed before. Also it’s not worth my time , but it's their club , it's their rules.

So I share because I want others to be exposed to good music and I think copyright owners should take this is into account because it will probably increase their sales.

Hello May, Beltane and Jordan Reyne

It is an incredibly bright and sunny morning, though as I am writing this I am not sure what the temperature is like outside , although I will know by the time I finish this. I have been out and though it is clouding over it seems that winter has truly been banished and spring is moving towards summer, so weatherwise we are in a more clement atmosphere although there are still some dark clouds overhead , but as long as they wait until tonight before drenching us that will be fine.

I have to amidst that my new writing regime using Google Docs to create the skeleton document before publishing it on Vocal and Sevendaysin seems to be functioning very well. I did try using my voice to create posts while I was out walking but that didn’t really work out as there was too much editing , but it is good for capturing ideas.and doing short posts. I tried it before when I was working for EE in Darlington and voice recognition has improved a heck of a lot but you still have to be very disciplined to produce a readable document without too much editing.

Today is Beltane which is the Gaelic May Day and marks the beginning of summer.

The name, Beltane, loosely means “bright fire” possibly referring to the Celtic God Belenus.

It is one of four Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Samhain, Imbolc and Lughnasadh.

Beltane has also been observed for centuries in Europe and is embraced by some Pagans, who mark the occasion with the lighting of bonfires, dance and rituals.

Celebrations included the lighting of bonfires, with rituals including both cattle and people walking around or jumping over the fires.It was thought that the flames had protective powers, and some communities got the smoke of the fires to blow over them and their livestock or brushed the ash onto themselves and their cattle.

Food was also sometimes cooked over the fire to form a feast. Other customs included decorating homes with flowers including primrose, hawthorn and rowan. As well as hanging them in windows and doorways, the blooms were often attached to cows.

For some reason I picked up my signed copy of “Bardo” by Jordan Reyne who is one one of the most original artists I have ever heard, and although at one point she was going to retire from music, she came back and her music is as original as ever , darkly gothic , celtic and pagan , all her music iis available on her Bandcamp site and worth every penny. Plus if you buy from Bandcamp the artists get a fair remuneration for their work unlike other sources especially the main streaming platforms.

I think I have all her output and it is all well worth listening to , and her videos for her songs are incredible too. As well as the Celtic influence there is a definite Eastern European feel to a lot of her videos and she is worth following on Youtube.

Here is a link to when I first saw her at Think Tank in Newcastle supporting The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing in November 2014 .

I will share the video for “Then They Came For You” the very title showing her darker side and from it you can really experience the dark and amazing world of Jordan Reyne.

There has been a lot happening today but I have a lot more to write about but don’t want to end up with a huge war and peace type post which people look at and thing “Whoa that’s too much”, I do like to provide bite size pieces for your enjoyment.

More Good Technology

 After going on about the concept of distributed power (posited in the excellent  F Paul Wilson book “Legacies”), this morning something happened (that has happened before) when I tried to photograph the moon which looked rather close , so I took a picture with my Canon camera that has a 25x optical zoom and 100x digital zoom (I think the more megapixels your camera has then the better the digital zoom will be) although when you get to very high zooms you need a way of stabilising the camera , just holding your device won’t do it. As an example my Google Pixel 2XL phone had one of the best cameras when it came out but only has a 7x digital zoom.

Anyway back to the initial point of the post. When I downloaded the picture onto my computer I opened it up and in the top left hand corner was an aeroplane which I hadn’t seen when I took the picture. Digital photography has given everyone the chance to take brilliant pictures, and not only that , you can take lots of pictures and choose the good ones to share. Someone remarked on the high quality of my friend Chris’s pictures and he replied (roughly) “For every shot you see, there’s a thousand in the bin”.

When we used film , you never knew whether the pictures were any good, you had to send the film off to be developed and wait for it to come back and hope that there were some good. This is a great example of how some technology can improve our lot.

As I am writing this Google Docs is checking my spelling and my grammar, another example of improving technology that makes our lives easier. I do remember writing documents and then running a spell checker, and proof reading to hopefully spot any grammatical errors. Modern word processors now do that as you are typing so you can be fairly sure that your text will come out and the end at least fairly readable.

Mobile phones have now become handheld computers. As well as using them to contact people by voice , like our original wired landline phones , we can text , send pictures and video calls. And that’s just the contact bit. We can now use them to access the internet and find out almost anything we want. The internet is an amazing reference library although you have to know how to search and I tend to just use Google although on my work computer it defaults to Bing .

Technology is enabling me to write this article, and I remember when people wondered whether to buy typewriters. I used one as a teenager and while I can use one I would rather use some form of word processor.

Our music has gone from live and written through vinyl storage , magnetic tape , to computer storage and digital media meaning that music and video can be stored and streamed on the aforementioned phones and other devices.  Paper books are also published as digital copies, although this was started by Project Gutenberg which transcribed out of copyright and print books onto digital copies which are now available often for free.

Amazon Kindles and other reading devices (you can use your phone for this as well) are great for reference books and very large tomes. A paper book doesn’t need power and sometimes is preferable to an ereader. 

One old technology thing I miss is teletext. I would like a text option on my TV, but the amount of real programs on demand probably negates the need for it, but I dod like the fact that you could overlay what you were watching with what you were searching for. Then again I do have my mobile phone to search the internet  if I want to find something I need to know.

So the perfect piece of music to accompany this piece is “Good Technology” by Red Guitars. I remember having to buy “America and Me” on vinyl (my favourite record of theirs) , although I did eventually find it on a CD album , so there is more good technology.

I feel I have hardly scratched the surface with this , so no doubt I will be revisiting in the future, then again I might not , but who knows?

Book of Distributed Power and Tom Waits

 This piece of writing includes a spoiler in the first paragraph, although if you have read the book “Legacies” it is irrelevant and if you haven’t it is still worth reading.

I am currently reading what I believe is the first Repairman Jack novel and the second “Adversary Cycle” novel by F Paul Wilson. They are the same book “The Tomb” , and that got me thinking of what is the second Repairman Jack novel (not part of the “Adversary Cycle” ) “Legacies” which deals with the concept of distributed power.

Distributed power would enable us to power things over the whatever waves, the same way as we do with television , radio , mobile phones and wifi encept doing things with power. I still don’t really understand how we can transfer music or video in the form of wifi or radio signals to a device and it succeeds. As you transfer whatever space is taken up on the device , so whatever is filling up that space must come from somewhere but we cannot see it.

We know it comes from somewhere and it goes somewhere and when it’s delivered we can use it , so the concept works , but I really don’t know how.

The nearest I am aware of to distributed power are the pads that you can buy to charge enabled devices to charge without plugging in. I suppose we could get worried if the waves were full of electricity variants, getting us scared of being fried like the claims against 5G mobile phone signals.

Imagine a world where everything worked in that way , you wouldn’t need to fill up a car or charge a phone or computer. You wouldn’t have to pug anything in. As I typ this I amd listening to “Small Change” by Tom Waits , the DD player is plugged into a socket and takes power from the wiring in my house.

Imagine no wiring and no plugs , power always available and always on. That’s how we think of our utilities. We expect our water to flow, our lights to come on when we flick the switch , our phone to work when we want to make a call, but we still generally have to plug things in or fill them up to actually use them.

Taking this further, imagine a self filling kettle or meals ready on demand , how convenient would that world be. Would we use the extra time to improve ourselves or would we just watch television and drink beer and wine? 

The things we do in life do take effort and time , but I feel if I didn’t have to plug things in and charge my phone or fill up a car, my life would be a lot simpler and allow me to do more and improve myself even more.

So that’s essentially what I wanted to say in this piece and it woul dbe interesting to find out if people have any other examples of distributed power type scenarios and also reasons why we couldn’t have that at our fingertips.

Again listening to Tom Waits’ “Small Change” which seems to be straying into “American Gothic” territory on many songs. His voice and delivery is unmistakable and I am impressed with how hes persona progresses and changes over his albums sequence. I was very impressed with the “Under The Influence” documentary on Amazon Prime and am enjoying revisiting his first five albums  in the Asylum box set.

The opening song on “Small Change” is “Tom Traubert’s Blues” was covered by Rod Stewart and the opener on his debut album “Closing Time” “Ol’ 55” was covered by The Eagles so while his vocal style may not appeal to mos tastes , mainstream artists can see how good the songs of Tom Waits are.