I went to London for a couple of days with my family (to see the Dr Who Experience, which was great).
London is amazing, incredible, complicated, grimy, noisy, confusing, busy and many many other things. I’m not sure I could live there but I love going there all the same.
I love the snow. I love the snow for many diffrent reasons – personal, artistic, social – I just love the snow! So when I came out of the Corn Exchange in Cambridge this weekend after watching the City of London Sinfonia perform Ralph Vaughan Williams‘ Scott of the Antarctica I was very excited.
The photo above is of Kings College, Cambridge as the snow was falling down. The photo below is of locked bikes outside, the snow piling up agaisnt the wheels.
When we came outside everyone was moving about, pulled up collars and hoods, heads down, glimpsing up a few short seconds at a time, catching the snow in your face. Voices were raised some in dread and some (most) in giddy excitement. Through pub windows you could see people huddle into seats glad to be inside, talking about outside. The journey home was a bit hairy in the snow but, that’s the thing about snow – it changes everything. Each step you take, how you drive, how you see things. It is a leveller.
The following morning we saw this all the more clearly. Dad’s are playing with their children. The light has a new quality to it. Everything sounds different. There are fewer cars. Amongst the new soundscape birds can be heard, more excited voices, the crunchy sound of the snow beneath your feet. Everything you do is new but it’s only there for a short time and then it’s slush and then it’s gone. A memory.
I love the snow.
We went for a walk. Last out the door, I patted the dog and set out across the fields.
As soon as we went passed the last house and into the first field you could feel the wind. Pushing at us, passing all around us, pressing clothes to bodies. Dipping our heads down ( in defence? Respect?) And the noise, roaring across the ears. I pull my wooly hat down lower over my ears, a gesture only.
As we went into the next field, I could hear the voices of children playing football in Fleckney, carried by the roar, in the roar, over distant hedges, other fields, finding me here. But we keep walking and the sound is gone.
Yesterday I took a slow stroll with some friends and our children to the top of Beacon Hill in North Leicestershire. Sheltered by some rocks for tea and biscuits then went to look out over Leicestershire from the trig point. The wind was incredible – I put my hood up to cover my ears somewhat but still the roar was there and constantly pushing, touching everything. It felt fantastic.
Met up with a friend in Birmingham a few months ago and noticed he was using a Silvine notebook. This instantly took me back to my youth, where these little red books were staple features of a Post Office or corner shop’s stationary shelf and would always be longed for – the allure of fresh, new, unwritten upon pages.
So my friend picked one up for me the next we met. But what shall I use it for?
Last week I went to the funeral of a friend. The service was where I grew up as a teenager. I had to catch a bus across town, arriving at this place so familiar yet strangely new. Like parallel worlds overlapping, the edges of dreams like a flicker book. I could remember individual trees, footpaths, sign posts. Each step another memory, another recognition of something gone but still felt.
I walked past the rows of headstones, passed slow moving cars, people in summer clothes tending flowers. I could just hear the birdsong above the roar of the roads that corner this spot and above the groundsman carefully driving around the plots on his motorised mower. Then I rounded the corner of the crematorium to shuffle amongst the small group of friends.
A hushed politeness and smiles, of dressing up, of looking around for the people we might recognise and the family we don’t. Do you remember me? We’re here to remember him.
Slowly the car arrives and we all take our places.
There’s that Robert Frost poem, a lovely Elizabeth Frye poem. Some songs. Words to make us remember. My mind contiually wanders then comes back to the point each time thinkng of the sorrow of loss and the poor children left behind.
We quietly, politely, slowly, gently file outside. I hug an old school friend, we share our stories. Then we ponder what to do next.
What we do next is sit in an old pub in town and share stories, remembering friends with friends. Then go off our separate ways. Me to pick up my children, others to remember the days spent with one another, being young, revisiting old haunts.
And each step another memory.
Recently, over the course of a week or so, I’ve stumbled across three things that have lead me to posting this. The first was a tweet from the excellent La Cosa Preziosa from her Twitter stream here. She posted a link to a short Film Board of Canada film from/about R. Murray Schafer. It’s called Listen and it’s pretty fascinating.
My inspiration R. Murray Schafer in a wonderful and interactive short! nfb.ca/film/listen via @thenfb—
La Cosa Preziosa (@lacosapreziosa) August 28, 2011
A few days later John Rushton of wearealtered and make recordings posted a great link to some work that Sound and Music are doing in schools in the UK. The idea is to get children to listen to 60 seconds worth of audio a day and then get them to talk about it – their thoughts, experiences, ideas and so on.
Then, this weekend just gone, my eldest daughter’s homework was to listen to the sounds around her from a specific point for five minutes at three different times across the weekend. She sat on our front doorstep and noted down the things she heard.
This is something we don’t do enough of, particularly musicians and all those people that tell me ‘they love music’ – when was the last time you dedicated specific time to listen to something – be it music or the sounds around you? I’m betting it was a long time ago. We tend to do a lot of hearing but very little listening. The Sound and Music article contains the following words.
Listening, and the way we experience sound, has a huge impact on our lives. Yet in a predominantly visual culture time is rarely dedicated – particularly in schools – to exploring our aural experiences and developing our ability to listen in a concentrated or imaginative way. Minute of Listening aims to highlight the importance of listening and create a structured, daily activity that allows teachers the time and the means for their class to explore the joys of listening.
I think it’s a really good idea that could benefit all of us. Try it.
It’s really difficult to know what to say about this other than ‘wow, that was amazing’ because it was.
Three dancers/acrobats, a few props and some lovely music by Ted Barnes. A series of short stories told by their movements and facial expressions. I found myself drawn into it so easily. It was all so subtle and gentle, you just found yourself in the middle of it all going…..’wow’
The group are called Mimbre and I really recommend you go to see them if you get the opportunity. This was recorded at Arts Fresco in Market Harborough, an annual event where the town is taking over by lot’s of street theatre for the day, something else I highly recommend you visit too.
I don’t know when it was that bookshops became more interesting to me than record shops. Moreover, I don’t know when second hand bookshops became more interesting to me that second hand record shops, but at some point they did. Back in Leicester there would only ever be one copy in of something I found interesting and someone always got it before me. Also, as the staff changed over they seemed to become less interested in the people coming in and what they were buying – you used to be able to walk in and the folk behind the counter would say ‘ Have you heard this? It’s form Chicago like so and so…’ They’d remember what you’d bought and try and turn you on to something else. Those days are long gone for me.
So I’m totally excited to tell you about the place I found this weekend just gone….
I went to Cornwall (for the first time ever) to see my parents for a few days – I had a total adventure and experienced things I will remember for the rest of my life, but there for another time. On the saturday we went to Falmouth and hung about whilst waiting to get a ferry up the Carrick Roads. After popping into The Poly to see the printmakers exhibiton (ace) and climbing Jacob’s Ladder to visit and old friend I haven’t seen for 13 years or so (so lovely to see her again)
I walked up the old High Street and stopped by a window that appeared to have cuttings from an old Jazz mag in it (Jazz as in Jazz not as in ‘top shelf jazz’), intrigued, I stepped inside.
The place is called Jam and it is a most fantastic place. They were playing Kurt Vile on the stereo, one side of the wall is stacked with a really eclectic range of records – super hip hypnagogic, a boat load of ECM releases, proper jazz and real out there stuff, as well as other stuff that would appeal to the most conservative of new music buyers.It made Rough Trade feel like Fopp. The fact they were playing someting they wanted to listen to and pointed out on site to me and answered questions was great. There’s a table full of books. There’s battered sofas, coffee and biscuits. In short, there is SOUL. I found myself in a total daze in there being confronted with so much great stuff presented with care and love and joy and I recommend the beJesus out of the place. Can’t wait to go back and this time soak it up a bit more.
Hunstanton is a small seaside town along the north edge of the county of Norfolk (though I think it’s under King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council). It’s sort of split in two halves referred to as Old Hunstanton and New Hunstanton. This post is about New Hunstanton.
It’s a proper British seasidey town – there’s a lot less of the delis and art galleries you see in other North Norfolk towns. It has a traditional sea front that doesn’t seem to have the money lavished on it that Cromer has.
It often feels as if it’s stuck in a particular time or, rather, a particular time in my memory. Here are some photos I took whilst I was there and a recording of Thomas’s Bingo – an amusement arcade and bingo hall on the seafront.
It also has a Sea Life Centre – an excellent way of entertaining children!
