Schrodinger's Cat

press clipping

Real Groove (March 2004) sez "The release of recordings by Dave Edwards, the (in)famous Masterton audio-experimentalist is a divided-opinion pleasure. Whether you love it, hate it, or just wish he'd do it somewhere else, Edwards' art is always an interactive experience, and the spontaneous nature of his audio output encourages descriptions such as abrasive, discordant, sombre and atmospheric. Such adjectives contribute but never tell the whole tale, and the simultaneous release of Parataxes and Loose Autumn Moans (both via fiff dimension) is the latest proof. Since his previous discs, Edwards has formed a permanent group, The Winter, and the sum of the interplay between these three musicians (guitarist, cellist and percussionist) has taken these improvisational acoustic and electric performances to new territory. Parataxes is all instrumental, with birdsong setting the mood from the outset, while Loose Autumn Moans has a variety of solo and group performances (vocal and otherwise) within. Enjoying improvisations can often be a challenge but, personally there's always room for such complexity as the recordings of The Winter. A fresh blast of cleansing abstraction reinvigorates the mind I always say"

Writer writing about writing the writing that he is writing

Dreamed about playing a steak-cooking/bathwater duet with Ant Donaldson. Before that one about reading a Canadian comic book, which said the Canadians had a bad record for treating Japanese prisoners of war. Letters page had some NZers writing in with information on NZ plants and train crashes.

Spent the last couple of days stuck indoors because of the rain. It wasn’t possible to go to Paekakariki on Monday as the trains were cancelled. It actually suited me quite well as a chance to work on the jazz book chapter that I’ve had hanging over my head for the summer. I got some writing done – actual writing as opposed to sitting around drinking too much coffee and procrastinating. With such crappy weather summer seems to be fizzling out, kind of a pity since this week’s my last chance to work outdoors. I’m sure that when I start my journalism course next week it’ll be fine and sunny outside while I’m stuck in a lecture theatre. It’ll be weird being a student again. It has its good and bad points. My student allowance comes to just less than my living costs, not sure why students have to be treated as second-class citizens. You’re financially better off on the dole, at least in the short term. There was me so proud to have paid off my loan last year - now I can turn around and get another one.

Writing’s a bizarre lifestyle, I’m sure the act of getting amorphous thoughts down into shape on paper has some kind of physiological effect. Supposedly in the ancient world people had much more powerful memories, like the guy who could recite the Aeneid backwards or the general who knew all of his soldiers by name. Writing is a useful tool but has maybe actually diminished our powers of memory. Writing externalizes thoughts, so does that mean that it actually takes something out of the writer? I made a series of music albums, which I think of as writing projects as much as music. I like doing music as I have no natural talent for it, whereas I was told since primary school that I was good at writing – which has led to a lot of feelings of inadequacy & pressure. The good thing about the albums is that they’ve preserved snapshots of my mind at different stages through my late teens and early twenties. I’m now a different person but my earlier selves have been preserved. The problem is that while on one hand each has a development & progression from the previous one, on the other hand each one seemed to have a higher psychological price tag. The first one was easy (if amateurish), the second I spent a lot of my own money and pissed some more experienced musicians off by being disorganized, the third I had to get very introspective and alienated my girlfriend, the fourth was an instrumental group effort so actually quite easy & a relief, and the fifth coincided with the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ disaster that led me to start this weblog – the result of a disturbing inner deadness. The album’s good though - a reverse Dorian Gray situation?

I also wrote a series of short stories in 2002 and put the better ones (that actually got finished) together into an 80-page book. I’ve made 50 copies so far, should probably run off a few more. I think it stands up reasonably well, though there are one or two cringe moments. A lot of it’s based on my first couple of years in Wellington, so again now that the past has been fictionalized & transferred to paper it’s gone out of my head and become something else. Writing fictionalized quasi-autobiography I’ve found it hard to get back to my childhood ability to just make stuff up though – hope I can rediscover this. Growing into adulthood seems to be a kind of solidifying process, things get less freeform. It’s harder to write songs too. I seem to be at the point which Bob Dylan, referring to his mid-late 70s work, described as ‘having to learn to do consciously what I used to do unconsciously’.

Writing non-fiction is a lot simpler. It’s a hell of a lot easier to get published than creative writing too, especially if like me your artistic tastes are a bit leftfield. It does have a tendency to hang around overhead and dominate time though. I’m hoping with the journalism course that having a quota of forty stories to get published will give enough pressure for me to learn how to ‘just do it’ rather than wasting a lot of time. Last summer I was writing an article on ‘Grooves of Glory’, the final play by the late Alan Brunton – difficult to write, I wasn’t particularly happy with it, and it coincided with a bad period in my life. Brunton died just after I offered to write it which put added pressure on as there was a sudden increase of interest in his work and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. It got published though, in the current issue of Illusions which you can get at the library, and didn’t seem so bad when I saw it. This summer I’m writing a history & analysis of the Space for a book on jazz in NZ – easier to write but bigger. Next summer when the course finishes I’m not keen on the idea of working for a small newspaper somewhere. I’d rather get another outdoor job and in my spare time sit down to the real challenge of writing a novel – I should do one before I try and travel overseas as there’s more than enough material in my own life in NZ if only I can see it properly. Having experienced some weird things last time I did some sustained creative writing I’m a bit nervous. Will my sanity be the price? Am I the only one who experiences this?

For the sake of transparency I’ve also started keeping a weblog instead of a diary, and I have a website to put up stuff about my creative works, so instead of telling people individually what I’m up to or thinking about I can just say ‘go see the website’. I’m going to be doing a lot of writing over the next year – by the end of it will there be anything left of me at all?

Go see the website - http://fiffdimension.tripod.com

in which Dave gets drunk & throws up

I’m spending Valentine’s Day very quietly, nursing a hangover. I get heavily drunk something like once every two years and Friday 13th was one of those occasions. I went to my flatmate Bruce’s exhibition opening after work – interesting copper, stone and wooden sculptures that take months to make. It’s on at Thistle Hall for the week. There was also a fair quantity of his rather good home brew. I made my first sculpture since about intermediate this week as a rainy day project at work. The last one was a pottery Dalek made while doing the 20-hour famine, this one was a papier-mâché albatross with which to decorate the plant nursery.

After the exhibition I went to a friend’s birthday party & had way too much free vodka (at least I assumed it was free…). It’s fun to act uncharacteristically once in a while, I’m generally not much of a drinker. I was probably a nuisance knocking things over. I climbed out on the roof at one point, not sure whether I got back in or if that’s where I threw up & passed out. I must have been outdoors as I remember it was starting to rain on me. It didn’t seem worth the effort of getting up though. I got picked up and taken into the lounge and a blanket put over me. Then it was morning. I threw up a couple more times on the way back home. I drank some water but couldn’t keep it down. I’ve since had a shower & am hopefully through the vomiting stage, trying to keep down another glass of water. No inclination to have a big Saturday night.

There must be a function behind heavy drinking, or it’s symptomatic of something wrong. Workers in the film industry and Japanese businessmen are notorious for it, some kind of release valve for the stress accumulated in their work. Being way too single I’m not hugely keen on Valentine’s Day, which could be the explanation. Of course spewing everywhere and passing out isn’t likely to endear me to any potential partners… Last year my girlfriend went out drinking on Feb 14th with her film colleagues, got very drunk and took some other guy home. I found them in bed the next morning. The relationship was pretty much sunk by then & I think she needed some kind of gesture to end it. Still, the year before we were having a beautiful time together in the Marlborough Sounds near the end of our six weeks exploring the South Island after finishing uni. We made heart-shaped pancakes with fruit & whipped cream… too much cream. Got a bit queasy. Sickness must be a Valentine’s Day tradition.

http://fiffdimension.tripod.com

in the eye of the hurricane

I'm getting dicked around by WINZ - could make a blog entry but seems unimportant next to some of the other stuff happening around me. My job is WINZ-subsidised and my contract says I’m entitled to a $250 clothing allowance, which I’m trying to claim to replace my workboots which have fallen apart from too many hours up on the steep rocky hillside. Needless to say they’re making me jump through extra bureaucratic hoops and being generally unhelpful. This is very niggling and small, worst case scenario is that I have to buy some boots myself. My life’s pretty sweet at the moment, new flat in Newtown seems good, past half way on the book chapter. The Winter reunion jam in the weekend got cancelled due to drummer Simon’s leg injury. Not making much progress on new music yet this year but have been plenty busy with other stuff. Yada yada.

In other news I just heard from a friend I went to polytech with six years ago and haven’t seen for a while. In the intervening time he’s gotten married and had a son… and his wife’s got cancer. Another guy I knew from around town drowned over new year’s. My ex-flatmate’s pregnant & has been into the pysch ward. A family friend of Fi's killed himself. There’s been a disgusting diesel spill in Milford Sound… I’m fine, & dodged a bullet not picking up a deadly STD earlier on. I certainly don’t deserve the luxury of getting depressed again this year…

mumbling back into focus

Got my first Stonesoup statistics report, which said that most people came because of the blog’s title, which I had originally used to show that I was in an indeterminate state of not knowing whether I was alive or dead… fortunately I’ve since turned out to be alive. Sure I must come across as a miserable bastard in print… in reality only sometimes. People must come to the site looking for information on the notorious scientific thought experiment (actually locking up an animal in a small box next to a potentially fatal radioactive isotope would be considered cruelty surely) and probably not on encounters with transsexual prostitutes & obscure music that most of you won’t have heard (rectify the situation with the free mp3s on my website, below)…

2004’s resolving itself into shape. 2003 was a jpeg which reveals itself a line at a time, whereas 2004’s a gif where you know the vague shape right away and the details gradually clarify. The Feb 19 gig’s now postponed til April 10th… checking a calendar reveals that they gave me a Thursday night instead of a Friday or Saturday which Foisemaster need to be able to travel down. Will hopefully play something live before then (watch this space). I found a flat in Newtown – at 25 I’ll be the youngest member which might be a bit odd. Will hopefully sort out the DoC job tomorrow. Still going on the Space chapter, plenty of coffee & procrastination. Also hopefully tramping again with Fionnnaigh in the weekend up above the Putangirua Pinnacles (location of the first scene in Braindead + paths of the dead in Return of the King) – anyone want to join us?

Mumbling back into focus, the light is like glass and the world is its liquid
Solidity wallows & senses are drowning in glass crystal fountains, scotch on the rocks
A song for his head and this is contemptible with orange marshmallow covers lie down from the ceiling
& roses of chocolate to bury the gloom, not the room, a full moon
How did you guess?

- from 'Cafes in Conversation' off the album The Marion Flow (2001)

http://fiffdimension.tripod.com