The Organic Gardening Catalogue were having a flash sale, and I picked up nine bare-root raspberry canes for seven quid. Right now, they’re dunked in a bucket of rainwater. The sun doesn’t go down until 7.59pm tonight, so I should have plenty of time to plant them out.
Cold cold cold. The apples are blooming, and the lilac I pruned has come back better than before and is starting to produce big blowsy white blossoms. Keeping an eye on the weather to see if I can spend a productive weekend out there.
OPERATIONS: Need to go deep into the details on the tv document I’m working on today, which, given the number of deliveries arriving and the other things going on, is going to be a trick.
COMMS: inbox 80, shutting some channels down so I can focus as well as possible.
LISTENING:
THINKING ABOUT: finding the time to finish the newsletter this week! It’s going to be tight!
In their newest release, TOC weave a tapestry of ambient melodies and minimalist compositions, inviting audiences to embark on a transformative auditory voyage. Drawing reality surrounding them and the enigmatic depths of the human experience, their music transcends boundaries, evoking emotions both profound and ephemeral.
I think this was 2015, in a bar with my daughter.
The title reflects a theme of dreams, ideas, fantasies, goals, and potential paths that exist somewhere but have not, for whatever reasons, materialized into this reality. They instead are contained, swirling and simmering. They must exist, if not tangibly here, then elsewhere. I picture them like glass orbs filled with gaseous starry substances that are sitting high up on some wizard goddess’s shelf in one of the worlds that overlays ours.
Ketjak: The Ramayana Monkey Chant
“Performed by more than 200 men seated in tight concentric circles around a small central space reserved for the chief protagonists,” the ketjak (loosely called “Monkey Chant”) was first recorded in Bali by David Lewiston and released by Nonesuch Records in 1969. As a spectacular and alternative performance mode, it has had a germinal influence on western performance and poetics since then.
I thought of this just before bed last night, and went to seek it out again. Thankfully, it’s still there. I once knew someone who had participated in a ketjak, and she told me it was among the most joyful musical experiences of her life. It’s an amazing sound.
OPERATIONS: Should be a quiet day. Today is the day I get into the structural stuff in this tv thing document I want to have landed by Friday (because I foolishly said I would). Marked up the whiteboards just before bed, and thankfully I am starting to see some white space again.
COMMS: Inbox 68. Phone is up in the gooseneck holder so I can see notifications but I can’t touch them. This is good and useful. I have to lean over if I want to tap it – phone twitch is difficult to implement. In two minutes I will lean over and start my Zazen timer.
LISTENING: digging out my Eliane Radigue records so I can think. Here’s JETSUN MILA.
THINKING ABOUT: “…music floats around in the aether of the World Wide Web, waiting to be downloaded, hoping to talk to somebody.” OCEAN OF SOUND, David Toop
ORBITAL:
On the Films of Wojciech Has:
Has’s understanding of cinema as an oneiric canvas is apparent from the very beginning, and his sense that its narratives were meant to trip over themselves through elisions, reversals, and collapses reinforced itself throughout his career. His films are frequently in a state of mutation and his characters always on introspective journeys; objects are the only constant, as their material weight exhibits more solidity than his stories’ whims or his characters’ souls. All the while, Has’s camera acts like an accordion, playing in its own time, starting wide and pushing in to follow his characters’ reveries deep into the frame.
“Don’t touch it, it’s a very important work of art”: The story of Rocking Machine – the phallic sculpture in A Clockwork Orange:
There are many sexual references in the film and perhaps these set decoration pieces were chosen to represent breasts or bulbous phalluses. In fact there are many film props used in a Clockwork Orange that protrude or extrude: Alex’s mask, the droogs’ cod pieces, the bulb lamps, Alex’s pointy bedspread, and so on. The largest and most obvious bulbous object however, is the Rocking Machine sculpture by Herman Makkink, which sits proudly on Catlady’s antique wooden console.
Deep dark blizzardscapes to rumble through the night.
In the far north, whispers of a bygone civilization linger in the crisp air. Intriguing clues fuel speculation: ancient maps marked with cities that seem to have vanished, and weathered remnants of massive stone structures scattered across the frozen landscape.
These structures, with their rough, geometric shapes, stand as silent witnesses to a forgotten past. But the most compelling evidence comes from the stories passed down through generations by the indigenous people. They speak of a time when unknown travelers from the north walked these lands, leaving only echoes in the legends they carried…
2015.