What's next?

Oh, you didn't think there was actually going to be a part 12, did you? Pff.

Anyway, poor quality pastiche be damned. I have determined that 2009 will be the year when slightly crazy plans are brought to fruition.

In particular, something to do with environments and participation, and something to do with time. A lot of time.

And something to do with a bunch of 19th century composers behaving badly.

More clues later. Gotta go chase the next deadline now.

Look ma, I'm on hiatus

Not sure how that happened. Actually, I'm entirely sure how that happened. A combination of extreme business and personal stuff (none of your business, sorry) that's left no time or inclination to blog.

I've got a few ideas for things to post here, and I wondered for quite a while if it might not be better to wrap up here and start afresh. But I figure the raison d'être of this ol' house has always been pretty vague, and I wouldn't want to inconvenience the 10 or so people who stop by here, so Notations will begin again soon, with a chilling Seasonal Tale.

Shit, I'm blogging about blogging, which puts me down with some of the scum of the world. On the other hand, I have managed and shall continue to resist the temptation to start posting pictures of the cat, so be grateful for that, at least.

Sound in place

So, the move is done, the crappier crap has been thrown out, and everything has found its place (or at least been put in a pile small enough to ignore). Normal service may be resumed shortly.

A life in boxes

I am surrounded by stuff.

Packing is an activity that inevitably leads to a certain amount of introspection; it's like a ritual, sifting through the lives once led in preparation for the life to come. Those books, CDs, pieces of random paper that bring to mind times you'd half-forgotten, smiles and rueful wonderings about what might have been, if only. But there's no if only in life, only what was, is and shall be.

So the difficult decision becomes, what stays and what goes? There are of course things that retain their immediate usefulness or potency, and those that can be happily discarded (CDs that will never again be played, books that will never be re-read). But there's also a slew of things that fall between; things that you can't entirely justify keeping on any practical level, but bring warm feelings of nostalgia. How do you decide about these?

I try to be reasonably callous about it; I believe in looking forward, not becoming mired in things past. But at the same time, that past is what made me, and I need to keep something to remind me of where I've been. Judging the line between these is a difficult one.

Mostly, though, at the moment I feel overwhelmed. When you've been in the same place for over seven years, you don't notice the accumulation of things, and it's only when you come to put it in boxes that you realise how much you are defined, and weighed down, by possessions.

There's a piece of me that wants to stand up, walk out and leave all the things. That knows I only need what I carry within me, really, and that everything else is detritus. But I can't let go of it all. I'm possessed by objects, and it's a worrying feeling. But we cannot entirely escape the detritus we have produced, and must accept responsibility for it.

Let's go to work

Little time for blogging at the moment, as you may have noticed from the few and inconsequential posts lately. Well, I'm afraid you'll have to get used to that, because inane witterings about Doctor Who is about as good as it's likely to get in the immediate future. This is not in itself a bad thing, as it's at least partly down to the exciting thing that I'm now working on, of which I shall not speak, as talking about these things seems to have a tendency to kill them off in my mind. Maybe once you've expressed the thought behind it the need for the piece evaporates. Better to explain in retrospect, if at all. I will say there's an element of thinking about rhythm involved, in a different way to what I've done lately. All these months I've been worrying about my drained pool of ideas, wondering if I need to take a long hard look at things and reassess what I'm doing, and it turns out what I really needed was a few days off. There's a lesson for us all there.

Anyway, Doctor Who. I'm getting quite excited about that.

A powerful beat

We are a product of our environment. But our environment is also in part a product of us. I'm an untidy person. I create the mess that surrounds me. And yet, when I get around to tidying it up, I become aware of how much the mess around me creates untidiness in my mind, that turns a creatively non-sequential mindset slowly into an impenetrable thicket, so cluttered with detritus that I can no longer fight my way to the important matters buried within. And this process creates a feedback loop, so that the thicket of thought builds up a dam against action, the mess in the physical world builds and thus feeds the mess in the imaginative world, until something breaks and insists this will not do. And once the clutter begins to disappear somehow the mind begins to clear also, and one begins to think again of productive thought rather than the tiny, time-strapped whirring that dominates all too often.

There's nothing wrong with this cycle; it's a rhythm, and life needs a rhythm, sometimes simple, sometimes complex, and the simple rhythm must build to complexity and the complexity must in its turn give way to simplicity. It's just a shame that the moment of Nothing that acts as the agent of this change too often arouses out of imposition (of illness, say), rather than being allowed to emerge of its own will. Or is the illness simply a manifestation of this need occasionally to stop?

The out sound from way in

We go to the seaside, eat fish and chips and paddle in the sea. I try to capture the place, but as my companion points out, it's an impossible task, because there's so much more than sight - all the sense are involved. And particularly for me, hearing. I've always loved the sound of the sea, whether from land or on board ships. My attempts to conjure up soundscapes seem so tiny and insignificant compared to this natural symphony.

It sharpens my ears, though, and returning to work I find myself listening afresh to the sounds surrounding me as I travel - something I've drawn on in the past for my own music - the angular, crippled clattering of the tube rails a stark contrast to the smooth rush of the sea and shingle.

This is part of why it pains me that people fill their ears with tinny distorted sounds from their i-pods and phones. What a shame to reduce music to something with which to smother the world. There's music all around, if you want to hear it.

What are we here for?

When I started this, I had no real idea where it was going or what it was really intended to achieve, and as time goes by I feel increasingly that I don't really want to reach a definitive answer to those questions. But it occurred to me the other day, as I looked through a few old entries here and they sparked new ideas that might break the deadlock that's stalled a cherished project for a long time, that at least partly what this is is a place for ideas with no home. It's not exactly pieces - they're frequently too brief and unpolished for that - but I can't think of it as exactly sketches either, as that implies (to me, anyway) that they're intended as preparations for some greater plan (and I've written plenty of sketches at least as substantial as anything I've posted here that haven't appeared here as they're specifically intended as work towards a specific goal) . As it is, they sit here, awaiting their moment when light shines on them and their purpose becomes clear.

What use is a book without pictures and conversations?

I am very much looking forward to the next few days. This is for several reasons. One is the prospect of some time off work, and some rest. Another is the prospect of having some time getting out and about in some fresh air in good company. Another is the fact that I have got the new book by Bryan Talbot, Alice in Sunderland, which from what I've read so far will be a thoroughly absorbing holiday read. And I shall be going to see him give a talk about it next week, which should be fascinating, if his similar talk about The Tale of One Bad Rat (soon to be republished, I'm told) that I saw a couple of years ago is anything to go by. I'm also getting quite excited at the prospect of the return of Doctor Who. Yes, I am a geek. So what?

I'm also looking forward to some time away from certain annoyances, such as the person who's barely paused to draw breath since I got into the office this morning. Sheesh, can't some people shut up for 5 minutes?

Absences

There seems to be a chill in the air, a general ennui, disillusion and withdrawal. Where does this come from (apart from here)? Am I just imagining this, spurred on by a few coincidences and my own unproductivity to a hyperbolic conclusion? Maybe now that the days are stretching into the evening and the sun strains to bring in the spring people have simply realised that there are other things to do. Or perhaps it's simply a fallow moment before new buds appear. As I stumble over clumsy attempts to shake off my creative torpor I'm reminded of this poem:

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

Activity vs. Achievement

Some weeks you don't seem to get anything done, yet when you look back you can't quite work out why, as nothing seems to have left an impression on your memory. Is it because you've been too busy? Or are you being lazy? Is this a block, or just a natural fallow period? Are you drying up, or do you just need a holiday? Are you fed up with your job, or just your immediate circumstances? Was the week really that featureless, or is it just that it seems so after such a good weekend when you glimpsed a freedom you've been missing?

Maybe it's for the best to have a quiet evening pottering, washing, cleaning. Then a day of activity to follow. The thing is not to work or not to work - it's to achieve a balance between the two. Inactivity isn't necessarily unproductive, any more than business is necessarily constructive.