Posted by: emsical on: 20/12/2010
It looks so simple from a distance
The way lives touch,
touch and spring apart,
the pulse synaptic,
local, but its stretch
electric – as when cities
lose themselves in velvet
under winking planes,
binding back hostilities with gold chains.
Anne Stevenson
Posted by: emsical on: 20/12/2010
The way we go about our lives
Trying out each empty room
Like houses we might own
Eavesdropping for clues in corridors
until
Standing at a gate or attic window
Seeing beauty in a flag of sky
We’re gone, leaving all the doors open
All the lights burning
Katherine Towers
Posted by: emsical on: 07/10/2010
I really don’t know. I always leave it absolutely ages before I come back to this blog, but I still don’t really want to stop…I was thinking again today about getting back into writing. So maybe I will come back more often? If I could just shake off this damn fatigue.
Posted by: emsical on: 27/05/2010
Saw some live theatre last night – went to Greenwich Theatre to see Dangerous Liaisons, a Mappa Mundi production. It was excellent – funny in the right places and really gripping and moving in others. The whole cast were really good, but the actress playing Cecile was especially good – she managed to steal the show a bit from the actor playing Valmont, who was also brilliant, charming, seductive, dangerous and human.
One of my favourite sequences is when he is toying with Cecile, convincing her to give him the key to her bedroom, which ends with him telling her he ‘cannot abide deceit’! Another classic is the ‘declaration of war’ scene, between the Marquise and Valmont. So elegant, and cleverly done. I’ve never read the book, though I now intend to, though I have seen the film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, which I now want to watch again. The war scene in the film is particularly powerful; I think I first saw the film as a teenager, and was very impressed by it.
Well done Greenwich Theatre – an excellent venue to boot – lovely bar and cafe, and close to lots of lovely restaurants and bars for after-show discussions and debates.
My mood is much improved.
Posted by: emsical on: 26/05/2010
Have been in the new job for about a month and a half, and I have to say it is still a struggle of monumental proportions to get myself out of bed and get here in the mornings. I’m just about making it every day, but I just don’t want to. So, I’m in a quandary – is the job not right for me, or have I just not given it long enough yet?* Part of it is to do with the journey there, which is about 45mins longer than my old ‘commute’ (…approx 7 mins, so I know I was a bit lucky there). I’ve discovered that I find it a bit easier when I walk first, then get the bus, which stops at the top of the street the office is on, rather than getting the tube, then walking for 15mins, uphill. For some reason, the walk after I exit the tube really depresses me. Hmpf.
I just don’t feel happy. I’m not expecting to feel happy happy joy joy all the time, but being happy at work is more important than we give it credit for – we are here a huge proportion of our time – it is, in fact, what we spend most of our time doing. What I want to avoid is gettting into a situation where it keeps wearing me down to the point where I do get really depressed and it all gets on top of me.
Then there’s this feeling, this inclination I have that things could be improved by some small, unspecified yet crucial change, to my surroundings, to the way I organise everything – like something just needs to be clicked into place. Then everything would be ok. Of course, I have no idea what that might be, though I did buy a plant for my desk the other day, and I do feel cheered whenever I look at it. But, overall, I think it is going to take more than a pot plant.
*all of this comes with a sprinkling of the following on top: ‘oh my god I’m lucky to have a job at all after I got made redundant/could I even get another job in the current climate/am I just stressed out/panic/panic, etc.
Posted by: emsical on: 26/05/2010
Ok, will be starting this again. It has been, well, a while. Perhaps longer than a while, to be honest. But let’s see how I get on – will pop back later today and post something, honest.
Posted by: emsical on: 20/08/2009
…is the holiday. Oh my god – so near and yet so far. I just have to hang on until the first week of September – then I’m off. Leaving all this behind to laze around on beaches in Antibes. Can hardly wait.
But, to business. Everything very busy at the moment – hence the posting hiatus. Trying to launch the new website at work and there appears to be some unspoken conspiracy to make it as difficult for me as possible. Not sure what that is all about but you know, you can’t halt progress, and one must bash on regardless.
Things that distracted me from the horror of the website project today: Video ads in print media: http://bit.ly/1H2nav. Amazing yet true – really reminds me of advertising in futuristic films, Bladerunner, Minority Report, Total Recall. We’re just a hop, step and a jump away from ads tying to entice us to the off-world colonies! Maybe.
And then there was this: Patrick Moore discusses space rock http://bit.ly/GwmER. Truly brilliant – perhaps someone could show Bowie how to sing…?
More bulletins when I have got a few seconds to spare, including the August hotlist…
Posted by: emsical on: 27/07/2009
Everyone loves a list!
At the moment, I am fascinated by:
*Supposedly simple explanation:
Actually, that last line about the mean isn’t really all that clear, is it? Or is it just me? I’m assuming, for ‘numbers’ you can substitute ‘factors’ depending on what you are trying to work out – quite possible I have misunderstood something here. Don’t worry, I don’t work in finance.
Posted by: emsical on: 26/07/2009
‘Art is whatever you can get away with’ – Andy Warhol
‘Art for art’s sake, but money for christ’s sake’ – this was in a novel by David Lodge called Therapy, which is very funny. I’m not sure whether the quote is Lodge’s, or if he is paraphrasing. I like it a lot though, as someone invariably has to put a value on art for it to become successful; it has to become a commodity.
So success is reductive in the sense that the artwork is a reduced to a product, to be marketed and sold. I recently went to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, which was excellent, though it got me thinking about how the art gets valued. I always love this exhibition because it is so varied every year, and there are so many different pieces to look at. Last year, I saw a couple of paintings by Bill Jacklin, which I just fell in love with. According to the little catalogue they give you to consult as you wander round, his paintings go for around £3k plus. At the time, I thought, if I had the kind of money that allowed me to spend that kind of cash on art, I would love to invest in something so beautiful. And yet, I also think, if art is only bought by wealthy private collectors, then that means it is hidden away, which is a bit sad.
Which comes back to the ‘product’ notion. If it is just a product, then private owners can do whatever they like with their purchases (obviously), hmm. Anyway, I did wonder how the art gets priced in an exhibition like that, as the prices do vary so wildly. How do they come up with them? How do you put a value on art? I might have to investigate this and come back to it. I wonder if there are any accepted guidelines on pricing, and what the factors are? I assume that the artists charging the higher prices have agents, and I suppose they must broker deals with galleries, and there must be all sorts of commission and fees and so on.
‘All art is quite useless’ Oscar Wilde
Posted by: emsical on: 25/07/2009
Huzzah! Have managed to start a WordPress blog – which I know is not thrilling in itself – but, bear with me. I have also managed to transfer all the blog posts from my old blog, which was languishing in Blogger. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, and I’m still not sure…but as I said, I am very excited about this new development. I am a total geek.
I’m also not sure about the URL, but everything else I tried was already taken, so I suppose this means the blog is no longer anonymous. Which means I’ll have to watch what I say from now on, I suppose…
