Sundown

The Weather Gods finally grace you with a clear evening, so you hurry down to the beach, camera in hand.

The sun has touched the horizon line as you get there, and you begin to snap away. And then, you stop. This is something new, and not an event to be witnessed through a viewfinder.

The sun is sinking as you watch. Over thirty seconds it shrinks to a half-coin, a sliver, a dot, before the sea swallows it and it winks away. There is no record that you can show people of this. It doesn’t matter. You have it, warming a corner of your memory in coral pink and Florida orange. This one’s a keeper. This one is safe.

You walk back to your cottage in the dimming light, hand in hand with your wife.

And your heart is full.

20110624-102224.jpg

Holding Back The Storm

The Storm Giants come at us from a thousand miles away. That’s one hell of a run-up. They hurl their fury at the coastline with brutal, unforgiving force, and also with a dreadful patience.

We can do this for millennia, the cannonade of the surf declares. Eventually, your castle walls will fail you.

But the defences at Bedruthen are strong, and built to last. Better yet, they are manned by invisible creatures, twice as tall as we are. The steps carved into the battlements are much too steep and wide for we puny humans. They fling rocks at the storm, and have done so for a very long time.

We are simple observers to a war that has raged since we first whispered around campfires. A war that will continue long after we are sketches and memory.

20110623-183611.jpg

TLC and I have gone into the west, where stories bloom between the rocks like strange, glorious flowers, and all the beasts have TALES.

Sleeper, waken

She sleeps, and her dreams are as green and deep as the earth she rose from. The wind through her branches gives her the deep, even breath of a maiden adrift on a sea of longing.

In winter, she would be blanketed in an even swan-white cover. At the height of summer, the day after the solstice, the sun warms her flanks with the heated touch of a lover.

Some say it is that touch and its fleeting nature that makes her seem so sad.

20110622-163537.jpg

Meanwhile, in his bed along the copse path, her brother lies awake and plans out mischief.

20110622-163923.jpg

Both these figures can be found in The Lost Gardens Of Heligan, a ten minute drive from St. Austell. Very heartily recommended.

We are in the west, walking strange paths and forgotten woods.

Here be Mythagos.

Going Dark

TLC and I are off into the west this week. I don’t think they’ve heard of the Internet where we’re going, and phone signal is sporadic. So updates this week will be intermittent and tersely worded at best.
Instead, I will be settling down to some good old fashioned reading and writing, without the distractions of yer TwitTwoos and Facebonks and an RSS feed that don’t ever seem to quit.

Serenity or madness await.

20110620-124743.jpg

The Big Man

I clearly remember the first time I ever heard Clarence Clemons play sax. The Old Grey Whistle Test, that exemplar of taste and musical goofiness, regularly used to roll out a clip from the 1978 Winterland gig that’s one of the all-time classics for followers of the E Street Band. Bruce was still a skinny, hyperactive runt. They played Rosalita. The whole song is propelled by the Big Man’s horn, driving, adding drama and little points of thrill and beauty even as it revs behind Bruce as he tries to talk Rosalita into a night-time tryst. He’s massive in that clip, physically and musically. And boy, could he ever pull off that salmon-pink suit. The guy was always sartorially … adventurous.

There’s a lot of distraught fans out there posting Youtube clips of Clarence’s Jungleland solo. It’s one of his finest moments, I’ll grant you. But Rosalita shows how the Big Man was the bedrock of the E Street sound, the heart and yes, goddammit, the soul. I don’t mind admitting to you that I’m a tiny bit tearful about today’s sad news.

The angels are in for a treat tonight. Blow, Big Man.

The Mutant Question: X-Men First Class, prejudice and revenge

We humans are a venal, fickle bunch. We’re fine with superheroes as long as they’reaccidental (bitten, exposed to gamma radiation, struck in the face by toxic sludge); gifted by otherworldly outsiders (aliens or magical beings, or indeed aliens posing as magical beings); or if they’re otherworldly outsiders (aliens from a stricken red-sunned world, gods of thunder, Amazonians). If you’re unlucky enough to be born with your power, then we will fear and despise you. Talk about a mixed message.

(spoilers after the cut)

Continue reading The Mutant Question: X-Men First Class, prejudice and revenge

Justified: an interview with Bill Drummond

I was looking for an exit strategy all morning. Maybe I was ill in bed. Maybe an unexpected client attend had dropped on me. There had to be something. I was halfway through a sixty-hour crunch week at work, and the last thing I needed was the added stress of a filmed interview with an ex-member of the KLF.

Thing was, I’d made a promise. And this interview was a big deal. Bill Drummond, art-provocateur and Justified Ancient Of Mu-Mu, was the last interview we needed to get perspective on Gimpo and the whole M25 Spin. It didn’t matter how tired I was, or how many rings I’d have to jump through to square a four-hour lunch break with work. We’d chased Drummond for years, and for me to bow out at the key moment because I was a bit tired wasn’t going to play. Dom would forgive me, but I’d never be able to forgive myself.

Continue reading Justified: an interview with Bill Drummond

Rules Of Engagement: Easy A and the laws of Highschool-land

NewImage

The Laws Of Highschool-Land are clear and sharply defined. As a citizen of the state, there are certain people you must be friends with, certain things you must wear, certain actions you must carry out, certain things you must say. As long as you stick to those rules, then you will be safe and content, and nothing will ever happen.

Which is why those rules are designed to be broken.

Continue reading Rules Of Engagement: Easy A and the laws of Highschool-land

Weekend Off

Or if you like, in research mode. Two posts hacked out and ready for you next week already.

In the meantime, courtesy of Leading Man Clive, please to enjoy Jonathan King’s lovely ligne clair comic, Threat Level.

And HOORAH, at last, a new Vegan Black Metal Chef! Crushing potatoes with a mace? We’ll all be doing it this time next year. Remember, show them no mercy.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as I can reboot my BRANES.