Schrodinger's Cat

'The backdrop shifted and changed'*

I just found myself listening to the Turangalila Symphony by Olivier
Messaien & reading the liner notes en francais. I found I was able to
read it without having to mentally translate back to English. Also
pretty mindblowing music, which I'd been instructed to seek out a
while ago.

I also finally tracked down a book I'd been wanting since about 2001 -
le Spleen du Paris (mais en anglais) by Charles Baudelaire. Some of
it's like flash fiction, and I love the fact that it's poetry written
in prose. For some reason stanzas on a page make we want to skip over
it without reading, I have to force myself to take it in. Whereas
this evening I found myself reading album liner notes en francais
quite happily - so many different kinds of reading. I'm also half way
through a biography of Eric Blair, the first thirty years before he
stepped into a phone booth and became George Orwell (& speculating on
how & why he did so).

The idea of taking on a persona is an interesting one. Am I becoming
Dave Black or is Dave Black a character? cf Star Wars III, Batman
Begins this year, not to mention Doctor Who where cheesy comedy
episode is then followed by contrasting story featuring one Dalek
being yelled abuse at by Eccleston-Doctor and then outwitting him.
Eccleston & Piper both quit, making the season a stand-alone
mini-series which will have a different cast (& writers/directors
etc?) next year. The episodes are flawed marvels & in this sense is
true to the Doctor Who concept, which at its heart is breathtakingly
simple. The Doctor, his TARDIS, storytelling.

Black has far more associations than Edwards, and it's my mother's
maiden name so not much of a stretch.

Midwinter Christmas gig ended in stalemate. It started late and so
ran out of time - I didn't get to play. But somehow I didn't want to,
it didn't feel right. I couldn't quite isolate it but I'm sure my old
enemy, the self-defeating-urge took over. But not necessarily - I
didn't lose any honour, kept the high ground and was willing to play
(albeit not feeling especially enthusiastic at the prospect).

Also, I've got a great girlfriend here who holds everything together &
who I'll have to be leaving in about three weeks when I head back to
Wellington. She's a great friend & it looks like the bitter
recriminations & burning hatred clashing with inertia (the
irresistable force meeting the immovable object & shoving it aside)
that came with the Elisa breakup can be avoided. She's also one of
about four or five people who've actually understood what I'm doing
musically.

Ascension Band in Melbourne in March is just another idea at this
stage - if an attractive sounding one. Good news on the band front is
that for the Bomb the Space gig, Warwick is taking a turn at the
composer role. He's the one who holds it all together so it's good
news. Also means that Nigel's happy to shift roles around. And
there'll be different people which'll be great, and I've got a banjo
to play, which will I think really come into its own once its
electrified. I'll miss Belle Murphy though...

Ascension Band is interesting for me in that it's fully resourced & equipped, and is the one project of mine that stands a good chance of getting noticed. The shows were maybe my first complete success.

And from there to Stalemate in Melbourne? Not necessarily a bad
thing, I've just gone underground a little. I've got a lot of stuff
brewing and buried in my laptop - will get a net connection back in NZ
and make it all happen.

I also got a message from Alice saying I can move back into the same
room at the flat on Rintoul Street! It's like going home, and might
feel like I never left. Will Melbourne have been all a dream? Just
this mysterious banjo object which I have to investigate...

And there's still time for good things to happen here.

PS One phrase I got preoccupied with at the turn of the millenium and
which keeps coming back to me is 'I repent for I am militant'. Any
theories?

* - Mark E Smith

Posted by fiffdimension at June 27, 2005 09:04 PM | TrackBack